
WEAN I 
THE NATION 










* *1* 




Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Weaning the Nation 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! 
The mother is appealing to Columbia. "Save our sons and daughters!" 
is her desperate plea, and to Columbia appears the vision of where the ruin 
is being accomplished. 



Weaning the Nation 



: : : : FROM : : : : 

STRONG DRINK 



THE PEOPLE AS A NATION INDICTED 

And : Millions : of : American : Citizens : Convicted 



The Crisis and the Remedy 



By WILLIAM R. VAN SAN T 



LEGAL ADDENDA 
(Chapters 39, 40. 41 and 42) 

By L. F. CUMMINGS, Member of Chicago Bar 



Sixteen Colored Illustrations by FRED. /. ART IN G 




PUBLISHED BY 

W. R. VANSANT & COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



w 






COPTBIGHT 1910 
BT 

W. R. VANSANT 



LC Control Number 



©CI.A256379 




tmp96 027243 



y FOREWORD 

The pernicious occupation of manufacturing and 
selling alcoholic drinks in the United States is 
doomed. It is doomed because the people are 
aroused over the disastrous results from such busi- 
ness and have become awakened to the fact that 
they must care for themselves. 

Economic conditions command attention. It 
costs more to live in this country than it ever did 
before. Bread costs more; meat costs more; every- 
thing costs more. In this land of plenty too large 
a percentage of our people are living in degrada- 
tion and are not as comfortably situated as they 
should be. 

There is one prime reason for this condition. We 
are wasting our substance. We are throwing to 
the winds that which we should use to better our- 
selves, and for the benefit of others. There are too 
many who are hungry and distressed, who are suf- 
fering from lack of the necessities of life. 

There is an economic lesson and a condition all 
can comprehend. We spend nearly two billion 
dollars a year, insensibly, criminally and foolishly, 
for alcoholic drinks. The use of this enormous 
sum of money, enough for all the expenses of the 
government, over and again, is lost. We have been, 
seemingly, unconscious in the past of this condition. 



Vi Foreword 

This sum of money which is thrown away would 
settle the bread and meat question. Every time a 
man takes six drinks of whiskey, or their equivalent 
in beer, gin or wine or any spirituous, malt, or vin- 
ous liquor, he drinks and wastes the price of a 
bushel of wheat, or six pounds of meat. This ap- 
plies equally to the other needs of life, to clothing, 
to shelter, to all necessities. He is squandering a 
great part of his and the nation's sustenance. 

This is only one phase, and the lesser one, of the 
economic aspect. This wastefulness has its effects 
in other ways. When a man drinks the price of a 
bushel of wheat or six pounds of meat he not only 
destroys that much of what we need, but he cuts 
dowin at the same time, the production of bread 
and meat and all other necessities of liie, for he 
and others of his class lessen their power of produc- 
tion, and therefore the energy, the vitality of the 
nation. The suffering from the lack of life's neces- 
sities comes from the loss of what we need. We 
must either buy or make what we need. With the 
money we spend in drinking we could buy all that 
we reasonably need, even at present prices. More 
than that, if there were no drinking the prices 
would not be so high, because we would produce 
more of everything. 

The truth of the situation stands out like a moun- 
tain — or greater than that, because it suggests an 
immediate promise, — like the blessed rainbow that 



Foreword vii 

God bends — the abolition of waste in drink and the 
consequent betterment of our economic condition. 

These startling and alarming truths are now be- 
ing considered by a majority of the people. Their 
minds have grasped the true condition of affairs. 
They are a good people and a strong people and, 
enlightened as they are now, are equal to the de- 
manding occasion. 

When correct and mutual thought comes there 
is united action; the right course is pursued and 
good is accomplished. When the thought of the 
nation on the liquor question has become united 
and concentrated, the manufacture and sale of in- 
toxicating drinks can and will be abolished. 

History, covering its ages, teaches us that neither 
an individual nor a nation knowingly persisting in 
or allowing wrong-doing, in order to exist, must 
inevitably endure great suffering and, in the end, 
destruction. The God made or moral law cannot 
be evaded by either man or nation. 

Reference has been made to money and its strange 
and preposterous waste! Money, relatively, is noth- 
ing. It is only the medium of exchange for the sup- 
ply of our material wants. Our material wants are 
only part, and the lesser part, of our existence. We 
live only for happiness and spiritual elevation. 
There is not a man; lover, husband, father; there 
is not a woman; maid, wife or mother; there is not 
a child, from the one who cannot yet use words to 



viii Foreword 

the lusty, growing youth, who does not live solely 
for the happiness of himself and others, that is to be 
in contact with Infinite love and Infinite strength. 
That is all there is to live for in this world. That is 
the reason for being and the object of the existence 
of all humanity. This is as far as we know. It has 
its design in the great system of the Universe. 

The consumption of alcoholic liquor has so tre- 
mendously reduced the total of human happiness 
that it overshadows all other evil causes. We now 
see and know this. We live, love, and struggle for 
our ambitions and affections, and die. We are 
vaguely, but convincingly, conscious of the results 
to us hereafter as well as here of what we do. Of 
the next world — what of that? We are not living 
as we should on this earth which was given us ; we 
are throwing away an enormous part of bur oppor- 
tunity for physical, moral and spiritual perfection. 

How is drink doing all that has been described? 
Drink kills or makes a suffering thing of the sound 
body. It kills, as the authorities show, over 200,000 
yearly in the United States and gives almost in- 
tolerable suffering to millions. That is a truthful 
presentment. So much for the body. That, even 
in its fearful showing, is the lesser thing. Let us 
consider the minds affected and what are the re- 
sults, not only to the unfortunates but to all con- 
nected with them and to the nation and the world 
at large. 



Foreword ix 

It is, in reality, only a fanciful expression of 
some poet of the past, but there are heartstrings in 
the world and the drinker twists and rends them. 
He may be pitied as an insane man. He tears hap- 
piness out of the bosoms of all connected with him. 
He makes the world blank and miserable, for the 
one woman ; he blocks the upward pathway of the 
growing children; he wrecks his own and others' 
fortunes ; he leans heavily on the entire community ; 
he fills the penitentiaries, poor-houses and insane 
asylums, and suffers himself such tortures as none 
but such as he can know. While he leaves himself 
wounded to the death, he also leaves a trail of death 
and misery throughout the entire course of his 
drinking career. 

We know the proportion of criminals and of the 
insane and poor who would not be as they are but 
for the effect of alcohol. We know the general 
wreckage caused by drinking. We know the awful 
suffering and cost. The money cost exceeds the 
nearly two billions of dollars by twice or thrice at 
least, but that again, is but a small part. The real 
cost is the sacrifice of that for which we live, the hu- 
man happiness, the very profit of existence — all that 
we are living for. 

But this greatest constant tragedy of our exist- 
ence, timeless, almost, as to its beginning, will have 
an ending. The same kindly and overruling Provi- 
dence which gave the people an opportunity for 
happiness, is opening their eyes to see, and giving 



x Foreword 

them force to grasp that opportunity with all its 
wonderful consequences. No man can foretell when 
the world will suddenly comprehend that to which 
it has been blind for centuries and take swift and 
crushing action. All great reforms come in that 
way. The sufferers simply wake, rise, master 
all opposition and reign. Such an awakening, the 
greatest of all of them is at hand. The manufac- 
ture and sale of alcoholic drinks is doomed. 

This book, "WEANING THE NATION," is the out- 
growth of a condition. The author's plan and 
achievement in dealing with the various phases and 
aspects of the situation have been thorough and 
painstaking. The facts gathered and given are sur- 
prising in their extent and comprehensiveness, and 
the deductions made from them plainly irrefutable. 
The greatest question of the day is considered from 
every angle, fairly, plainly, unprejudicedly, but the 
result and verdict is given with no avoidance of 
the death sentence. He has succeeded in presenting 
both the evil nature of existing conditions and the 
means of escape from them in a manner which can 
hardly fail to awaken everywhere the deep concern 
and thoughtfulness which follow full understand- 
ing. It is, literally, the very "text book" of its tre- 
mendous subject. It blazes the way for the grand 
fulfilment, for the course to be followed which will 
lead the Nation to Right Living. It should pro- 
mote and hasten the coming change. 

The Publishers. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INDICTMENT. 

PAGE 

The relations between the Federal authorities and the liquor traffic 
— How the greatest evil in the world is condoned and even 
fostered — A condition without a parallel in governmental history.. 17 

CHAPTER II. 

THE SITUATION. 

Amazing facts as they exist — Over one billion six hundred and 
seven million dollars spent on strong drink in a single year — 
The detailed figures 24 

CHAPTER III. 

THE HISTORY OF DRINKING. 

The story of alcoholic beverages from the most ancient times — How 
the battle of Hastings was lost to the Saxons — The American 
Indians originally the most abstinent of races 31 

CHAPTER IV. 

HOW STRONG DRINK KILLS. 

The manner of liquor's effect upon the organs of the body — How the 
bad blood is produced and what is the immediate result — The 
influence upon the brain 42 

CHAPTER V. 

THE GREATEST CRIMINAL. 

Uncle Sam, as our expression for the government the defendant in 
the case — His great good qualities and his faults — What his neg- 
ligence and apathy are causing 51 

CHAPTER VI. 

WHY PROHIBITION DOES NOT PROHIBIT. 

The crippling influence of the general government — State laws con- 
stantly overridden — Uncle Sam practically involved in a vast 
smuggling enterprise 62 

CHAPTER VII. 

WHY? 

Why it i? that the attitude of the government is so at variance with 
that of some of the states — Gain the sole object — The tax fee the 
only thing considered 68 

xi 



xii Table of Contents 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AS IMPARTIAL AS THE GUILLOTINE. 

Alcohol makes no distinctions in selecting victims — The mental 
and bodily deaths occurring among all classes — Grades of suffer- 
ing according to intelligence — Views of the scientist Huxley. ... 75 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE MODERATE DRINKER. 

Evils caused by the so-called "moderate" drinker — Effect upon his 
own health and business affairs — The crime of setting an ex- 
ample which may result in the ruin of others 82 

CHAPTER X. 

ALCOHOL AND BUSINESS. 

The drinking habit inevitably a bar to success in life — A dulled and 
enfeebled mind cannot see opportunities — Drinking men no 
longer desired as employes 95 

CHAPTER XI. 

LIQUOR AND POLITICS. 

Invariable connection between the liquor dealers and the politicians — 
The saloon made political headquarters — Results on the welfare 
of the community of the vicious combination 104 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE TREATING HABITUS SEDUCTIONS. 

Why the youth, in most cases, takes his first drink — A senseless and 
inexcusable custom — Remarkable series of tragedies- from a single 
experience no 

CHAPTER XIII. 

liquor's byways. 
Devices to lead the ignorant into the drinking habit — Patent medi- 
cines — Analysis of the so-called tonics showing them to be but 
alcohol in disguise 118 

CHAPTER XIV. 

LIQUOR AND THE PHARISEES. 

The so-called "respectable" dealers in alcoholic drinks — The drug- 
gists — The department stores — The hypocrites professing religion 
who rent buildings regardless of the nature of their occupancy. ..127 

CHAPTER XV. 

WHAT OF THE CHURCHES? 

Missionary work most needed at home — Responsibility of the pastor 
— How the work of doing good should be carried on — What 
Abraham Lincoln once said , 135 



Table of Contents xiii 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SOCIAL PERIL. 

Dangers awaiting the innocent on every side — 'The example with- 
out the warning — The club, the jolly dinner, the cafe — Alcohol 
socially everywhere, insinuating, deadly 147 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RUINED HOMES. 

The home the Keystone of the community — Its wreckage through 
drink — Startling divorce statistics — Families disrupted and chil- 
dren robbed of their natural rights 154 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE CURSE OF GREAT CITIES. 

The cities alcohol's headquarters — Figures showing the enormous 
liquor bills of New York and Chicago—Prosperity of prohibi- 
tion and "wet" cities compared 163 

CHAPTER XIX. 

WHAT THE SALOON HOUSES. 

Graphic story of a single night in a flourishing drinking-place — 
The assembled criminals — The politicians in council — The "white 
slave" dealers and their prey 170 

CHAPTER XX. 

BEER'S CHAMPIONS. 

Beer the first famous intoxicant — Its comparison with distilled 
liquors — Corpulency not an indication of health — Beer and sui- 
cide — The temperance movement in Germany. . . , 177 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MORE GHASTLY FEATURES. 

Drink and the passions — Appalling instances of unnatural crime by 
those made delirious by alcohol — The unending tale in the daily 
newspapers • 187 

CHAPTER XXII. 

FACTS GRIMLY SHOWING. 

The pitiful story of what followed meeting a drunkard upon the 
street — Striking illustration made by a lecturer in a western state 
— The immediate effect upon an aroused audience 193 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE POWER OF WOMAN. 

Influence of woman for good in promoting a great reform — Affect- 
ing letter from a bereaved mother — Her appeal to the United 
States government 198 



xiv Table of Contents 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

woman's way. 
Woman's firm reliance upon and from other than earthly power — 
A family crisis and its interesting story — The seeming exhibition 
of a special providence in response to prayer 205 

CHAPTER XXV. 

RECLAIMING THE MAN. 

The case of the drinking man not necessarily hopeless — Practical ad- 
vice to the one who would reform 212 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

HOLDING THE FORT. 

The physical course to be pursued by the reformed — Diet and occu- 
pation — Where the man who formerly drank must exercise the 
greatest caution 220 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE NON-COMBATANT. 

Where apathy is an error — The false sense of obedience to party 
dictation — Principle greater than politics — The overshadowing 
issue of the present time 231 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

STRANGE AND SENSELESS. 

Why do men drink — Phases of the inevitable degradation — Incom- 
prehensible weakness or madness — Where man exhibits less in- 
telligence than the brute creation ,. 240 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

COLUMBIA. 

The fairest of all earth's beings — Her goodness and wisdom and 
earnest purpose — The occasional weakness of Uncle Sam — Co- 
lumbia's present firm resolve 248 

CHAPTER XXX. 

COLUMBIA'S SMALL WARDS. 

The little children of the land at the knee of the Goddess — What 
she would say to them to most assure their future happiness — 
The one abiding peril 255 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE FATHERS AND MOTHERS. 

Columbia's advice to the parents of the country — What is taught in 
youth produces the most lasting impression on the mind — Our 
imperative duty to youth 263 



Table of Contents xv 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

FIGURES THAT TELL. 

Direct annual expenditure for intoxicating liquors in the United 
States — Startling comparisons made with the cost for leading 
necessities — Figures not generally considered 271 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MORE ASTONISHING DATA. 

The drink bills of the two leading cities of the country — How a 
single county suffers — Enormous increase in expenses due to 
crime, pauperism and insanity 280 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE SALOON-KEEPER'S POSITION. 

Saloon-keepers agents rather than principals — Licenses issued in lots 
to the breweries — Status of the saloon-keeper's family in the com- 
munity—What distinguished prelates say 289 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

"reveille." 
How the normal man is sacrificed — What might be possible for a 
sober and sane humanity — Preventives better than any remedy — 
Carlyle on the force of habit 296 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE UPHEAVAL. 

Realization of the vast evil and increasing peril coming to the 
community — Widespread character of the reform movement — 
Lesser movements of the past 303 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE CASE OF TWO STATES. 

Oklahoma's constitution disregarded by the Federal government — 
Even the Indians enabled to secure intoxicants — Alabama's 
drastic and effective law — A model for other states 311 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE STATE RESPONSIBLE. 

Only the criminal negligence of local authorities can make a com- 
prehensive state law ineffective — The entrance of the politician — 
How legislation is prevented or made abortive 319 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE VOICE OF THE COURTS. 

Decisions to be utilized in cases for the enforcement of liquor laws — 
Opinions of the Supreme court of the United States — State courts 
— Quotations of expressions on crucial points 326 

CHAPTER XL. 

LICENSES UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

The reasons for which governments are formed — The welfare of the 
people the sole object — That which will harm the community 
cannot be licensed — Further decisions. 333 



xvi Table of Contents 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE SALOON AN OUTLAW. 

The power in the hands of earnest and vigorous prosecutors — What 
latest congressional legislation has accomplished 34a 

CHAPTER XLII. 

BY WHAT MEANS? 

Congressional legislation required in the great emergency — Not even 
moral support must be given the liquor interests — Repeal of the 
present tax on the traffic imperative 354 

CHAPTER XLIII. 
"of, for and by the people." 
Where the government fails because of its relations with the liquor 
traffic— Neither "Of," "For" nor "By"— <The words of Lincoln 
on the greatest of issues 361 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE NATIONAL VITALITY. 

Report of the Committee of One Hundred — Disease and death in the 
United States — Alcohol rapidly diminishing both the muscular 
and mental strength of the nation — A stunted people 369 

CHAPTER XLV. 

EXPLODED FALLACIES. * 

Ancient superstitions as to the effect of liquor disappearing — Drink- 
ing no safeguard against contagious disease — Intoxicants as 
dangerous in old age as before 376 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

WHAT $1,607,028,346 MIGHT DO. 

Illustrations of the potentialities of an enormous sum — Clothing 
80,000,000 people — A whole beeve for each human being in the 
country — The biggest city in the world 383 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

THE DAWN. 

The insolence of the liquor interests leading to their own destruc- 
tion — What has been done in various states — Business interests 
aroused in their own defence 389 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

A SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS. 

Brief resume of most important statistics — Further telling compar- 
isons — What Americans cannot afford 397 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

A FINAL APPEAL. 

The call upon all good American citizens — The menace and how it 
may be surely averted — A battle which must be fought at once. . .406 



PROLOGUE. 

In 1892, four centuries after Columbus discov- 
ered America, and at a time when Uncle Sam and 
his subjects were planning to do great honor to the 
occasion, the celebration of the four hundredth an- 
niversary of the landing, there was a wedding, a 
wedding with all the beautiful surroundings that 
could be wished on the occasion of such fair event. 
What follows is but the true story of two people, a 
simple, truthful account of the subsequent life of 
the bride and groom. 

The bride, a charming woman, the daughter of 
well-to-do parents, was endowed with fine instinct 
and intelligence, educated and trained in the re- 
quirements of life. In fact, she possessed all of the 
qualities of a beautiful, wholesome, perfect woman. 
A more complete or noble picture of womanhood 
could not be drawn or conceived. 

The husband was a man envied by all who knew 
him. He had been born and reared in one of the 
best families. He was a college graduate, large 
mentally as well as physically, and a man of rare 
attainments and opportunities. He was kindly in 
disposition, good in character and what the world 
called, a model man. 



10 Prologue 

The relatives, friends and acquaintances of this 
couple looked upon this wedding as the earnest of 
a most happy and perfect union. 

The two were well mated and, during the first 
ten years of their married life, were an ideal hus- 
band and wife. They were blessed with four beau- 
tiful and intelligent children. A more fortunate 
and contented family could not be found. 

About the eleventh year of their married life, 
suddenly, at least without any warning to the wife, 
a cloud appeared. The husband came home with 
the odor of liquor upon his breath. This was the 
first real shock the wife had ever experienced. The 
husband, however, presented the usual excuse, 
"only a social glas* or two with some business 
friends." 

During the next five years the husband continued 
drinking, going from bad to worse, finally wreck- 
ing his constitution, as well as his once successful 
business. The home was sold to satisfy debts in- 
curred while he was intoxicated. 

It is not easy to picture the agony and fear, the 
poignant suffering thus inflicted upon the wife dur- 
ing these last five years of her existence. 

The tragedy came. A murder was committed. 
The husband went home intoxicated and in a 
drunken rage, while temporarily insane from alco- 
holic poisoning, struck the blow which killed his 
wife. 



Prologue 11 

Notwithstanding the fact that this man was not 
mentally himself when the deed was committed, the 
neighbors talked of lynching him. The officials 
thwarted this action by getting him securely locked 
up in jail. Shortly afterwards, he was put into the 
insane ward and soon reached the cemetery, at the 
county's expense. 

Returning briefly to the victim, the murdered 
wife, the funeral was very large. There were min- 
isters, church deacons, good people and curious 
people attending. Sermons, prayers and gospel 
singing were features of the funeral services. 

Friends came to bury this woman. What did 
these good people do in the way of preventing an- 
other such tragedy, even in their own community? 
Nothing. Did they take immediate action to pre- 
vent saloon keepers and other vendors from selling 
alcoholic poison in their community or elsewhere? 
No. Did they take Uncle Sam (the Federal govern- 
ment) to task for his complicity in this crime? No. 
What then did they do? Nothing but weep and 
pray over the dead body. They did not even lock 
the door against the tempter to save the future of 
these four children, three boys and one girl. It is 
true that the children were adopted by relatives, 
but theirs could not be a home in the great sense of 
the word. 

What causes such crimes? Drink. Every person 
who can read knows this fact. The Chicago Trib- 



12 Prologue 

une kept a record for ten years and found that dur- 
ing that period fifty-three thousand five hundred 
and fifty-six murders were committed by men 
under the influence of liquor. Over ninety per 
cent, of these had been crazed by the effects of the 
poison. Of the remaining small percentage what 
proportion was guilty of other crimes than murder? 

What a disastrous showing! What is it that 
blinds the mass of the community, and paralyzes 
their sensibilities? What can be their excuse for 
allowing such a condition to exist? No doubt many 
readers understand that such an appalling condition 
does exist, but why such apathy and lack of deter- 
mination to destroy the evil? 

Is it not true that Uncle Sam (the Federal 
government) furnishes the means, and thus is 
chargeable with complicity in all these revolting 
crimes? Is it not also true, that the will of the 
majority, backed by determined action, can change 
the character of Uncle Sam, make him admit this 
wrong and, with one great effort, practically de- 
stroy the whole liquor traffic and at the same time 
end the drinking of intoxicating liquors on the 
part of all of his people? Then, with a reformed 
government, we shall have a reformed nation, one 
infinitely more prosperous and happy and with a 
glorious promise for its future. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The purpose of this book is to assist in weaning 
the American nation from its greatest vice and 
averting its greatest peril. 

The need is imperative. The very future of the 
Republic is involved. 

It is shown plainly, and it is hoped convincingly, 
that the almost universal consumption of alcoholic 
drinks is degrading and changing the character of 
the community; that the cost in money is too tre- 
mendous a burden to be borne; that the cost in 
human suffering and human life is beyond all esti- 
mate ; that the result of a continuation of conditions 
as they now exist is something that cannot be faced. 
And, above all, here it will be shown that the 
government itself promotes this evil state of things 
and aids in its perpetuation. 

States have decided that, for the general good of 
their citizens, intoxicating liquors shall not be sold 
within their boundaries. Armed with a federal li- 
cense, the manufacturers and vendors of prohibited 
liquors violate with impunity the local laws, and 
thus become accessory to the infraction of all other 
laws resulting from the misuse of intoxicants. They 
become insolent, defiant, dangerous, insufferable — 

13 



14 Introduction 

making sport of statutes that states have enacted for 
the infinite good of their people. 

Herein is told the manner in which the law is 
made ineffective by the very power that repre- 
sents in its broadest sense the law's majesty. Herein 
is shown how implied government endorsement en- 
ables the unscrupulous distiller and vendor to bring 
evil upon all communities, a pestilence, destroying 
hundreds of thousands and threatening the body 
politic; how the government, unwittingly, is en- 
couraging the nation's deadliest enemies; how 
mightily they have flourished under this dark man- 
tle of protection. 

The general integrity and w T holesomeness of the 
federal statutes is admitted and applauded. Rever- 
ence for them, however, demands that they should 
be purged of an unfortunate instance of mal- 
enactment and maladministration, resulting in a 
monstrous evil. For this condition there must be 
found a remedy. 

The discouragement of even the appearance of 
law-breaking is the very essence and high purpose 
of pure government. This is the priceless heritage 
of the people from the government's founders; its 
chief endowment from the real power, which is the 
will of the majority. 

In this book there is no appeal to prejudice, no 
fanaticism. Facts are sufficient and abundant. A 
work with the title and intent of the present one 



Introduction 15 

would be a failure did it not prove, from indisputa- 
ble evidence, reason for the indictment it sets forth 
and, at the same time, impress upon its readers the 
full significance of the facts presented. It must fail 
of its purpose if it does not place distinctly and un- 
mistakably where it should lie, the duty of righting 
these appalling wrongs. 

To call attention to a gigantic evil without sug- 
gesting a remedy would be but folly. What action 
must be taken by the people in this imperative 
necessity for self-protection will be indicated here. 

It is certain that we must act from a national 
standpoint and in an effective way. The states al- 
ready aroused and acting, must not be crippled by 
the Federal government. 

Everything must go to the world upon merit, 
free from emotionalism or prejudice. Herein the 
facts are laid fairly before the reader. It is the 
hope and earnest desire of the author, that this book 
may be a potent agent in effecting results desired 
by all. Among which are : 

i st. The awakening of the people, especially the 
non-drinking class, to a sense of their human obli- 
gations. 

2nd. To help the slaves of drink by placing in- 
toxicants beyond their reach. 

3rd. To educate the young, that the coming gen- 
eration may perceive and understand the real situa- 
tion ; enabling it to grow up into a greater genera- 



16 Introduction 

tion, one healthier in mind and body, avoiding the 
present suffering and tragedies caused by the use of 
alcohol. 

4th. And, finally, by forcing the complete aboli- 
tion of the manufacture and sale of alcohol as a 
drink in the United States, put an end to sin and 
suffering caused by the use of alcoholic drinks. 
Making a new nation : — happy and strong. It can 
be done. The situation is perilous, but it can be 
changed by the American people. Herein the 
course to be taken is advised and urged. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Serious Reflection Cover Inlay 

(Columbia, the wise and loving counsellor, pleads with Uncle Sara in 

behalf of his children.) 
Something Must Be Done ! Frontispiece 

PAGE 

The Whiskey Face 17 

Shielding the Stye 25 

The National Bookkeeper ., 33 

Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 65 

The Balance of Power 105 

The Example without the Warning 153 

A Distinction without a Difference 121 

The Pitiful Reason 161 

The Blue and the Gray 249 

Reveille 297 

Janus-Faced 313 

The Blind Tiger 321 

The Saloon an Outlaw 353 

The Summons to the Apathetic 409 



I 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE WHISKEY FACE 
Columbia draws aside the curtain and reveals to neglectful Uncle Sam 
the sort of face thousands and tens of thousands of his people wear because 
of the degradation he has allowed to reach them. The sight appals him. 



WEANING THE NATION 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INDICTMENT. 

It is a tragedy. A father has a son whom he 
cherishes as few children are cherished. Prom tot- 
tering childhood, through youth to lusty and 
promising manhood, the son is guarded and en- 
couraged and advised and, as might be looked for 
under such conditions, develops into a splendid be- 
ing, a credit to humanity, a potent addition to the 
ranks of those whom Providence selects for rulers 
of the world. Strong and aspiring the son, and 
proud and content the father. Then the tragedy, 
inexplicable, unbelievable. 

Just as the crest of manhood has been sur- 
mounted, just as the full career of great accom- 
plishment and good begins, the father, the great- 
hearted model parent, poisons the son, poisons him 
deliberately, cold-bloodedly, cruelly. A thing in- 
credible! 

Yet Uncle Sam — for so we will designate the 
government of the United States — is guilty of the 
ghastly crime. He is poisoning his own. 

17 



18 



The Indictment 



An arraignment such as this must be supported 
by evidence which cannot be disputed. What are 
the simple but appalling facts? 

The drink evil is the greatest curse which could 
afflict a country and it has fallen with special 
weight upon the United States. Its cost annually in 
millions is such as the mind may not grasp easily; 
the hundreds of thousands of wrecked or ended 
human lives for which it is accountable are beyond 
all definite computation. This monstrous evil is 
abetted and promoted by Uncle Sam. Whoever 
chooses may secure from him a license for the pro- 
duction and sale of alcoholic intoxicants. Aside 
from the licenses granted manufacturers, whole- 
salers and others connected with thejiquor traffic, 
Uncle Sam, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, 
granted licenses to retailers alone bringing in a 
revenue of $5,257,980. This means, since a license 
costs but $25, that he authorized 210,319 persons to 
sell liquor directly to the people. There is no limit 
to their operations. They may sell when and where 
they please. It matters not to Uncle Sam what may 
be the consequences of promoting this gigantic 
trade in poison. He is utterly indifferent. Prisons 
and almshouses and insane asylums and morgues 
may be filled and lives and fortunes may be 
wrecked — all this is nothing to him. The prison, 
the asylum and 'the morgue are to him uninterest- 
ing objects. He is even blind or indifferent to the 



The Indictment 19 

fact that his more than complaisance, his actual ad- 
herence to the cause of the liquor dealers, has an 
effect that reacts upon himself and that he is an 
actual loser in a monetary way. He is sightlessly 
and criminally stolid. 

What are, more definitely, some of the results of 
this barter with the agents of alcohol? 

Strong drink, in the estimation of the wisest 
physicians, is the primary cause of over seventy- 
five per cent, of all cases of insanity. In 1908 the 
state of Illinois alone appropriated $6,000,000 for 
the care of the insane in its asylums. .What must be 
the figures for the whole country? Of inmates of 
jails and penitentiaries and other criminal institu- 
tions the reports of superintendents indicate that 
the proportion who became criminals because of 
drink and the surroundings drinking involved is 
nearly ninety per cent. Think of the tens of mil- 
lions of dollars spent annually in the United States 
in support of these places of confinement for the 
thousands made vicious or savage because of alco- 
hol and no longer fit to be at large. 

Crime comes from drink. Immorality and 
pauperism come from drink. The distinguished 
prelate, Archbishop Ireland, who has made an 
earnest study of conditions, than whom a greater 
authority could not be quoted, says : that to drink, 
may be attributed seventy-five per cent, of the 
social evil and eighty per cent, of the poverty. 



20 The Indictment 

Crime, immorality, poverty, all are encouraged by 
Uncle Sam. In licensing everywhere the sale of 
liquor he assists the forces of debauchery and puts 
a premium on vice. Did ever such a condition exist 
before, in the history of any nation, — a condition in 
which the dominant power promoted the degrada- 
tion of the people? Even in ancient China, even in 
mediaeval times — for the evil of strong drink ex- 
isted then as now — the rulers saw the effect and the 
increasing danger and sought to avert it by the 
force of stringent laws and infliction of the severest 
punishments. And here, now, in the United States, 
the government is on the side of alcohol. 

But, not merely apathetic, not merely giving a 
negative endorsement to those who deal in strong 
drink, is the Federal government; and here is 
presented one of the gravest aspects of the situa- 
tion. It bars the efforts of individual states, made 
for the protection of their own people. State laws it 
utterly disregards in the use of its authority to 
license the sale of intoxicants anywhere in the 
Union. A state may have decided that, for the 
good of all its citizens, liquor shall not be sold 
within its borders, but, armed with a Federal tax 
receipt, the manufacturers and vendors of prohib- 
ited liquors violate with impunity the local law and 
make sport of the solemn statutes of the com- 
monwealth. Here arises a condition that is intol- 
erable. Interference with the right of a state to 



The Indictment 21 

regulate its own affairs is no light thing. The ex- 
pressed wishes of the prohibition states, their years 
of effort, resulting in enacted laws to clear their 
communities of the evils of the liquor traffic, have 
gone almost for naught. Take, for instance, the 
state of Maine, long noted for its rock-ribbed pro- 
hibition principles and statutes. In that state, in 
1908, nearly a thousand Federal licenses were is- 
sued authorizing the holders to manufacture or sell 
intoxicants. During the same period, in Kansas, 
where the prohibition laws are especially strict and 
comprehensive, 3,217 persons were given the right 
to retail whiskey and other intoxicating drinks, one 
concern to conduct a distillery, two to establish and 
maintain breweries and one hundred and fourteen 
to ply the wholesale liquor trade, a total of 3,334 
persons authorized by Uncle Sam to violate the laws 
of a sovereign state. And conditions in other pro- 
hibition states he has made the same, disregarding 
their laws and all their efforts to protect their own 
communities. 

The situation is further aggravated by the fact 
that Uncle Sam's contempt for state laws is only 
equalled in completeness by the sternness with 
which he enforces his own Federal laws. His tax 
fee is mandatory and positive, immutably so for all 
who would engage in the liquor traffic in any form, 
from the greatest distilleries and breweries to the 
cheapest of so-called "dives." Without the pre- 



22 The Indictment 

liminary payment of this fee any sort of deating in 
liquor involves swift and certain punishment to the 
person in default. The most insignificant violator 
of the injunction given is mercilessly pursued and 
made an example of. The strictness of United 
States courts makes them dreaded by offenders and 
would-be-offenders. Infractions and omissions that 
would be considered trivial by a justice of the peace 
these courts punish with penal sentences. The 
greatness of the government's power and certain 
vindication of its laws is here made as evident as 
elsewhere, and even the states are not exempt from 
unavoidable obedience to Federal authority when 
affairs, from great to small, conflict as between the 
one and the other. Our government's dignity and 
authority are rightly held in respectful awe by every 
citizen of the Republic and its attitude of any ques- 
tion carries the weight of definiteness. All this is 
necessary to its integrity and to its importance and 
its paternal helpfulness of the people — but condi- 
tions may arise under which the laws regulating 
the exercise of this vast authority must inevitably be 
changed. 

The general government is condoning and foster- 
ing the greatest evil which ever afflicted any race 
of mankind at any time. It is an agent in causing 
incalculable loss and suffering to its own people 
and in imperilling its own future. It is doing this 
in the face of protest from some of the states of 



The Indictment 23 

which it is composed, and stands deliberately in the 
way of their efforts to save themselves. There is no 
debate as to the present magnitude or the constant 
extension of the loss and suffering. There is no 
dispute over the fact that the government is, prac- 
tically, opposing the states in their efforts at reform. 
The situation is more than grave; it is immediately 
perilous. What are we going to do about it? 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SITUATION. 

An astounding and perilous situation exists with 
{which the American people must deal. It must 
be considered vigorously, simply as a national 
proposition, simply for the general good, simply 
as the immediate and imperative duty of a vast 
reasoning community. 

The drink evil overbalances all other evils the 
country has to endure. It is the most tremendous 
burden, even from the monetary standpoint, ever 
borne by any people. Let us consider it definitely. 
A charge unsupported by data is of no avail, but 
the figures are at hand. The government is more 
than conservative in giving out information re- 
garding the manufacture of alcoholic drinks, and 
recent facts are not easily obtainable, but those for 
one year will do for those of another, save that the 
governmentally fostered evil is spreading and that 
the figures are gradually expanding. We will take, 
for the sake of accuracy, the data from the govern- 
ment's fiscal statement ending June 30, 1906. Here 
is the drink bill of the nation for the year indi- 
cated : 

24 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

SHIELDING THE STYE 
Uncle Sam, defiantly and complacently, shields and conceals the liquor 
dealer beneath the mantle of governmental tax receipts. Page 20 



The Situation 25 

Kinds of Liquors. Gallons Retail Cost. Per Capita, 

consumed, per gal. total. Cost. Gals. 

Distilled spirits: 

Domestic 124,743,255 $5.00 $623,716,275 $7.41 1.48 

Imported 3,011,289 8.00 24,090,312 .29 .04 

Malt Liquors: 

Domestic ,.1,694,021,375 .50 847,010,688 10.06 20.13 

Imported 5,964,267 1.00 5,964,267 .07 .07 

Wines: 

Domestic 39,847,044 2.00 79,694,088 .95 .47 

Imported 6,638,179 4.00 26,552,716 .32 .08 

Total 1,874,225,409 $1,607,028,346 $19.10 22.27 

Total, one billion six hundred and seven million 
twenty-eight thousand three hundred and forty-six 
dollars! The figures are almost beyond imagina- 
tion. And this enormous burden the people stag- 
gered under, receiving in return, what? Not good, 
but evil; not benefit, but injury! What a tremend- 
ous economic effect such enormous expenditures 
must have upon the industry and wealth of the na- 
tion, and this apart from any consideration of the 
physical and moral results from the liquor's con- 
sumption. 

From statistics as carefully compiled, it is esti- 
mated that in 1898 the people spent about $2,200,- 
000,000 for strong drink. There are over 300,000 
convicted criminals in the United States and it costs 
approximately $1,200 a year each to watch, con- 
vict, and to house and feed them, while the average 
laboring man earns but $420 a year. Yet the labor- 
ing man, the poor man, is the one who must sup- 
port these criminals drink has made. We have yet 
no income tax, and the poor man and the one of 



26 The Situation 

average fortune are compelled to maintain the cost- 
ly machinery of thousands of courts of law and all 
the penal and protective institutions holding the 
vicious or miserable living grists these courts grind 
out. What attitude should the tax-payers of the 
nation take regarding the pending liquor problem? 

But, enormous as are the sums involved and lost 
through the traffic in and consumption of strong 
drink, the money loss, huge as it is, is not a thing 
to be considered in comparison with the annual 
wreckage of hundreds of thousands of minds and 
bodies, with the ensuing ruin of more than as many 
of the innocent. Words may not be at our command 
to tell the story as it should be told. Never lived an 
orator so eloquent, never a writer with pen so gift- 
ed, that the tale of what strong drink has done in 
the United States might be related with half its 
dreadful pathos or its savage features. It is some- 
thing incredible, inhuman, beyond all painting. 

How is it possible that with sufficient vividness 
could be portrayed the murders and all other 
crimes, the tens of thousands of tragedies, the. 
wrecked lives and homes and fortunes, the leading 
astray of youth, the ruin of young girls, the breed- 
ing of an army of vampires, the general retrogres- 
sion and debasement of the people as a whole? 

It is only because the facts have not been suffi- 
ciently presented to them that Americans have not 
risen in their might and done away with the awful 



The Situation 27 

affliction so long endured. They are not usually 
slow to act in an emergency or when their feelings 
and sense of duty are aroused. Suppose, for in- 
stance, that there were such mismanagement in the 
Philippines, that petty battles were lost, that the 
health of the soldiers was not cared for and that, in 
a general way, the situation became so bad that five 
hundred men were sacrificed in the islands month- 
ly. What would happen? There would be clamor 
from press and pulpit and a thousand public meet- 
ings, and prompt corrective governmental action in 
the premises would be a thing inevitable. Suppose 
a threatening pestilence of any sort were to break 
out anywhere between the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans and the Federal authorities paid no atten- 
tion to it nor took steps to prevent its spread. How 
long would it be before a mighty voice of command 
would reach to Washington? Yet strong drink, in 
a day, kills more than have been lost in the Philip- 
pines since they were annexed, and slays more men 
and women than any pestilence. An understand- 
ing, a complete realization of what intoxicating 
drinks are costing, of what they are doing, is all* 
that the American people need. Then they will 
act, swiftly and determinedly. 

And for this bankrupting and deadly situation 
the Federal government is largely responsible. 
Without the reckless and indiscriminate licensing 
of the manufacturers and sellers of intoxicants, 



28 The Situation 

the abatement of the evil could be left to the now 
helpless states. Elsewhere are given, more in de- 
tail, the reasons why state action is ineffective, but 
they should, without an explanation, be plain 
enough to all. The, indifference of Uncle Sam to 
state law and the wishes of communities has formed 
a safe refuge behind which vicious traffickers in 
intoxicants carry on their business, with an im- 
munity purchased for a trifling sum. Uncle Sam 
takes his thirty pieces of silver and betrays his own 
family. He aids in the distribution of liquor 
everywhere and at all times, under all circum- 
stances and even on the smallest scale. Nothing 
escapes the national barkeeper. Not content with 
the licenses issued to the more regular manufactur- 
ers and liquor sellers, he will, for the petty sum of 
$4 a night, issue a license to a dance hall where 
there are weekly or monthly orgies. This is some- 
thing not generally understood. In selling beer 
and whiskey privileges Uncle Sam reaches out as 
greedily for the pence as for the pounds. Clubs 
organized only for drinking places in evasion of 
the local law have always his helpful countenance. 
To lodges and every social or political organiza- 
tion of any kind he is equally complaisant. There 
are hundreds of touring and sleeping cars speeding 
across the country every hour which are but bar- 
rooms of a kind, veritable saloons on wheels. The 
Pullman Palace Car Company alone secures annu- 



The Situation 29 

ally hundreds of licenses for the sale of liquor to 
its patrons, and every great railway system of the 
country obtains permits from Uncle Sam for the 
same purpose in the dining car of nearly every 
train which carries passengers. The steamboats 
plying on the Great Lakes, on our navigable rivers, 
and the coast liners of the Atlantic and the Pacific 
and the Gulf of Mexico secure authority from him 
to sell intoxicants to his traveling subjects. What 
to Uncle Sam matter the consequences? He gets 
the money, money he need not acquire in a manner 
so desperately injurious to the people, for there are 
other sources of revenue available and abundant. 
Uncle Sam is utterly indifferent, though indiffer- 
ence in a crisis is as culpable in a government as in 
an individual. He stands by the current in which 
that splendid being, the nation's Destiny, is being 
carried to his death. "What of it ! Let the creature 
drown!" Uncle Sam is, in fact, one of those who 
have thrown him in! 

There is before the country a business and moral 
proposition never exceeded in magnitude in the 
history of mankind. There has grown up in the 
United States a condition unendurable in the pres- 
ent and threatening to become worse in the future. 
It is not merely the individual who is in peril, but 
even the form of government under which we pros- 
pered to the utmost until the time came when the 
drink evil put such check upon all our energies and 



30 The Situation 

aims. This evil is not only sapping our resources, 
but is changing the character of hundreds of thou- 
sands of our people. There is a retrogression, espe- 
cially in the cities, a decadence and debasement. 
The material is being steadily and widely produced 
of which mobs and revolutionists are made, the 
restless and godless who defy all established forms 
of government and who have overthrown govern- 
ments before. Not today nor tomorrow may they 
be dreadful on this account, but their forces are be- 
ing constantly reinforced. Of enough grave im- 
port is the condition of the present. It is such as 
should compel the attention and action of every 
citizen, of every American of intelligence who has 
regard for the welfare of himself or his fellow men 
or the future of his country. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE HISTORY OF DRINKING. 

When alcoholic drinks were first devised and 
men began transforming themselves into beasts, to 
their own inevitable sorrow, is an undetermined 
date. Certain it is, though, that the use of alcoholic 
beverages of some sort began almost with the dawn 
of history and that as related through all history 
the attendant dire consequences have been the same 
as they are today. 

All alcoholic beverages are liquids containing 
the product of the fermentation of some sugar or 
starch-containing material. With what is known 
as ardent spirits, such as whiskey, distillation has 
been added to fermentation. Distillation was a de- 
vice first conceived, it is believed, in the eleventh 
century, when an Arabian chemist named Albu- 
casis first distilled wine and called it the Spirit of 
Wine. Its use, for a long time, was confined to lab- 
oratory work, and for the preservation of animal 
substances from decay. Subsequently it was em- 
ployed as a medicine and afterwards as a narcotic to 
be used in sickness. It is also said that the Arabians 
taught the use of it to the Spaniards and that the 
Spaniards transmitted their knowledge to the 

31 



82 The History of Drinking 

monks in Ireland. The name "alcohol" was given 
to distilled spirits in the seventeenth century. It is 
claimed that the word was derived from the word 
ghoul, meaning an evil spirit which entered and 
tortured the human body. 

But, long before distillation was invented to in- 
crease the potency of intoxicants, fermented drinks 
had begun their evil work. The highly civilized 
ancient Egyptians had a beer called "Hagu" by 
which men were transformed into sots, as may be 
seen by this extract from a passage of the famous 
papyrus known as "Sallier I" and "Anastasi IV": 

"I am told that you neglect your studies, have a 
desire for enjoyments and go from tavern to tav- 
ern. Whoever smells of beer is repulsive to all; 
the smell of beer holds people at a distance. It 
hardens your soul. You think it proper to run 
down a wall and break through the board gate; 
the people run away from you. You beat them 
until sore. Do not give the mugs a place in your 
heart. Forget the goblets. You arise and act fool- 
ishly. You beat your stomach like a drum. You 
stumble, you fall upon your stomach. You are 
smeared with filth !" 

Evidently the old Egyptians were familiar with 
the evil of drink. Later still, though long before 
Christ, others of the old nations were afflicted. 
The Chinese had an intoxicating drink, doubtless 
prepared from rice, to which the people became 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant, 

THE NATIONAL BOOKKEEPER 

How desperately foolish and bankrupting has been the conduct of the 

business affairs of Uncle Sam in his dealings with the liquor interest 

appears to him as he consults the figures. Dazed and perplexed, he can 

hardly understand it. age 25 



The History of Drinking 33 

addicted to an alarming degree. Confucius, wh& 
died 478 B. C, cautioned against the excessive use 
of wine and spirits. So general became the vice 
that the authorities in various provinces were com- 
pelled to take action and, finally, when general in- 
temperance threatened the very existence of the 
empire, the imperial government — wiser than that 
of the United States — adopted the most string- 
ent measures for checking the evil— and succeeded. 

The intoxicating drink of the ancients in India, 
according to passages in the Sanscrit, was called 
"Soma," and is supposed to have been prepared 
from the juice of a certain creeping vine. In 
Persia, where the same drink was probably par- 
taken of, the usual effects upon a people must have 
followed, for drunkenness is especially forbidden 
in the teachings of Zoroaster. 

The Jews in Palestine drank wine made from 
grapes and other fruits, apples, dates, palm and to- 
matoes. As to the effect, perhaps it is best illus- 
trated in the biblical story relating to Noah. The 
Jews, however, do not seem to have become so gen- 
erally addicted to strong drink as were the older 
nations to which reference has been made and, for 
that reason, experienced no period when the people 
or the state stood in danger of ruin from drunken- 
ness, though, even among them, ancient history 
says, there was frequent occasion for admonition 
and advice as to the benefits of sobriety. 



34 The History of Drinking 

The conquering races east of the Mediterranean 
were undoubtedly heavy drinkers of wine. In 
Daniel we have an account of a feast made by 
Belshazzar, the king, and while they thus "drank 
wine the handwriting on the wall appeared." Dur- 
ing the night Cyrus and the Persian troops en- 
tered the city and that night Belshazzar, the king 
of the Chaldeans, was slain. The deep-seated de- 
termination of the people to gratify their basest 
passions and possess themselves, at any cost, of the 
intoxicating cup, is set forth in ghastly detail by the 
prophet Joel III. "They have given a boy for a 
harlot and sold a girl for wine, that they might 
drink." 

Later, the tragedy of John the Baptist had a re- 
volting distinction all its own. The story is as brief 
as terrible. The eloquence of John was so great 
as to attract such masses of the people to hear him 
preach that the rulers were alarmed and Herod (as 
here related in simple modern phraseology) sent 
for him to hear what he had to say. He spoke 
plain truths to Herod, and told him that he had no 
right to live with her whom he called his wife. 
Herod was pleased with John's words, he liked to 
hear him talk, but he would not give up his wife ; 
and to please her — for she was in a rage at what 
John had said — he caused John to be imprisoned. 
His wife wished him to be put to death, but the 



The History of Drinking 35 

king would not do that, for he liked John, and 
thought he was a good man. 

"But what she could not gain in a fair way she 
set out to gain by fraud. Now when Herod's birth- 
day came he made a feast, and the chief men of the 
land sat at the board with him. His wife had one 
child — his own niece — a fair young girl, named 
Salome. When the feast was at its height and the 
men were filled with wine, the young girl came in 
and danced to the sound of the flute and the harp, 
and pleased Herod and those that sat at meat with 
him. Much wine was drunk at these feasts in days 
of old, and as Herod wished to make a display at 
this time, there had been no lack of food or drink. 
The new queen was shrewd. She knew how men 
were when full of wine, and without a word to 
Herod planned out the scheme, and made her own 
child share with her in the great crime. The girl 
was fair, and full of grace, and the king said to her, 
'Ask what thou wilt and I will give it to thee.' And 
he swore that he would keep his word though she 
might ask for the half of his realm. The girl went 
out, and said to her mother, What shall I ask for? 
And her mother told her to ask for the head of 
John the Baptist. So the girl came back at once 
to the king, and said to him, My wish is that you 
have brought to me here, on a charger, the head 
of John the Baptist. 

"The king was grieved at this, for he had not 



36 The History of Drinking 

thought that a young girl would ask for so strange 
a gift, and he had no wish to put John to death. 
But for the sake of his oath, and because those who 
sat with him had heard him swear that he would 
give her what she might ask for, he would not say, 
No. Weak man that he was, he had more fear of 
men than of God. And he sent a man to cut off 
John's head, and it was brought in on a charger. 
And the girl took it and gave it to her mother." 

Of the debauchery of ancient Greece and Rome 
it is not necessary to speak. Many of their great 
men were ruined by strong drink and by it some 
of the Roman emperors were transformed into 
mere animals. Drink was practically deified, as 
witness Bacchus and Silenus, and the poets sang 
continuously the praise of wine. Then followed 
Rome's decadence and her fall. 

The early Teutons drank unrestrainedly, Taci- 
tus, writing of their customs, says : 

"They go to the drinking font always carrying 
their arms. There is nothing reprehensible to them 
in drinking day and night. The natural conse- 
quences of such drinking bouts are frequent quar- 
rels and seldom these remain confined to words, 
but, as a rule, they terminate with wounding and 
killing." 

Later, when Germany became more civilized, 
the evils of drink continued in other forms than the 
drinking bouts of warriors and adventurers. In 



The History of Drinking 37 

the year 1852 Bishop Hincmar, of Rheims, pro- 
claimed a serious interdiction to the ministers of 
his diocese, who on some occasions were fonder of 
drinking than praying, and councils of the church 
were ever compelled to deal with the profligacy of 
the priests. 

Martin Luther said that the man who first brewed 
beer was "a pest for Germany." * * ' * "I have 
prayed to God that he might destroy the whole 
beer-brewing business. There is enough barley de- 
stroyed in the breweries to feed all Germany." 

The more northern races had their heavy ales 
and, at times, a drinking rage seems to have swept 
over their countries, including England. Under 
King Edgar, in 959, the evil became so great that 
many of the drinking houses were closed and the 
king ordained, among other restrictions, that pegs 
should be fastened into the drinking cups or horns, 
at stated distances, so that "whosoever should drink 
beyond those marks should be liable to punish- 
ment." 

But perhaps the most extraordinary thing re- 
corded in all the history of strong drink is the ac- 
count of how it may have changed enormously the 
history of the world. In 1013, when the Danes be- 
came masters of England, it is said of them by 
Neibuhr that the people were not only "effete with 
crime, but with the crime of drunkenness," and, 
according to Fuller, when, in 1066, William the 



38 The History of Drinking 

Norman invaded the country and the battle of 
Hastings was fought, the army of the Saxons was 
a no better than drunk when they came into the 
fight." 

Small wonder they were defeated, but what tre- 
mendous and world-wide and long-reaching con- 
sequences to follow a general debauch! 

The most savage and uncivilized of peoples 
seem to have been able to devise some means of in- 
toxication. Pulque, made from the sap of the 
maguy, the American agave tree, has been drunk 
in Mexico from ancient times and, in the Malayan 
Peninsula, the savage islanders at the time of their 
first contact with civilization were found to drink 
a strong liquor made from the sap of the flower 
stems of the cocoanut. Livingstone, describing a 
tribe he encountered in Africa, speaks of the de- 
based men who left labor to the women and who, 
he says, "spent most of their time drinking the 
palm toddy, the juice of the palm oil tree, which, 
allowed to stand and ferment, produces an intoxi- 
cant which causes inebriation and many crimes." 

Not every savage race, however, has invented a 
strong drink or suffered from the effects of one, un- 
til it was introduced by others. It is assured that 
the processes of fermentation and distillation were 
entirely unknown to the North American Indians. 
The charge that our aborigines were addicted to 
intemperance before their intercourse with the 



The History of Drinking 39 

whites is contradicted by all authentic history, and 
it is evident that they were unacquainted with in- 
toxicants before the arrival of the Europeans. 

In September, 1609, Henry Hudson sailed into 
New York Bay. Some Indians were fishing on 
the shore. In wonder at so strange a sight they 
fled to inform their countrymen, who soon assem- 
bled. They concluded that Hudson, in his red coat 
and gold lace, must be the Manitou, the great or 
supreme Being. According to an old account, 
Hudson, the Manitou, approached the shore in a 
canoe. The Indians, chiefs and wise men, formed 
a circle to receive their visitors. "Then a man pro- 
duces a bottle, pours an unknown substance into a 
small glass and hands it to Hudson, the supposed 
Manitou, who drinks, has the glass filled again, 
then hands it to the Indian chief next to him. The 
chief receives it, but only smells the contents and 
passes it on to the next chief, who does the same. 
The glass passes around the entire circle without 
the liquor being tasted. When it is returned to 
the red-clothed Manitou an Indian brave jumps 
up and harangues the assembly upon the propriety 
of returning the cup with its contents. The Mani- 
tou makes it known that he desires that they drink 
from it. An Indian warrior takes the glass stating 
that it is better for one man to die than the whole 
nation be destroyed, bids the assembly a solemn 
farewell and drinks. He soon begins to stagger 



40 The History of Drinking 

and at last falls prostrate upon the ground. The 
other Indians think he has expired and bemoan 
his fate. Finally he awakes, jumps up and tells of 
his sensations. He asks for more. His wish is 
granted. The whole assembly then imitate him 
and all become intoxicated." This tradition is 
strongly corroborated and believed to be substanti- 
ally founded upon fact. The following year the 
Dutch made settlements on the island and liberally 
supplied the Indians with intoxicants, that they 
might more easily over-reach and rob them. From 
then on the Indians were debauched by the white 
men. Traders carried rum, as their profits were 
great. They made the Indians drunk in order to 
obtain their peltry at a cheap rate. False treaties 
with the Indians were nearly always the result of 
the influence of rum. 

So, with the advent of the whites, came liquor 
to this continent. Not the aborigines alone were 
to be the sufferers ; a thousand times more injured 
were to be the whites themselves. The history of 
intemperance here has been one miserable from 
the beginning. The drink habit came to the new 
world along with the early adventurers, whether 
Spanish, French or English. In those days ale or 
beer and wine were the chief intoxicants known to 
the colonies. In 1650 the attempt to land rum in 
Connecticut was made and resisted. In 1687 men- 
tion is made that rum, brandy and other distilled 



The History of Drinking 



41 



liquors were imported and yielded a revenue. In 
1 69 1, flour was sent from the province of New York 
to the West Indies and traded for rum. 

And since then alcohol has not only been toler- 
ated but been dominant in the United States at the 
cost of untold treasure and of untold lives. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW STRONG DRINK KILLS. 

Whiskey, beer, wine, alcoholic drink of any 
kind, is a poison and, taken in sufficient quantity, 
kills. Taken in any quantity at all, it may at least 
be said to wound. It destroys the body, and, 
through it, the mind. An account of just what al- 
cohol does to the body, to wreck its functions and 
produce disease and death, should be of deepest 
interest. 

How the poison of alcohol produces its deadly 
effects is a matter of knowledge commonplace 
among physicians. It is as familiarly and as defi- 
nitely understood as is the action of any other 
poison, for instance, that of arsenic or strychnine. 
What happens after it has entered the stomach can 
be described in detail, through every stage of its 
effects. If this knowledge were possessed by every 
human being, there might be hundreds of thou- 
sands fewer of those who are now unconscious sui- 
cides. Here is what alcohol does physically, just 
as a knife cuts or a blow crushes, or a bullet pierces. 

It is, of course, in and through the stomach that 
alcohol produces its results. Of what is taken into 
the stomach a portion is absorbed by the mucous 

42 



How Strong Drink Kills 43 

membrane, about one-fifth is conveyed to the brain 
while the rest is caught up by the circulation and 
distributed through the system. A large portion 
of this is taken out of the blood and passed through 
the perspiratory glands into the air. Much of the 
alcohol is also carried off in the breath. The heart 
and lungs and the millions of glands for perspira- 
tion are not under control of the will and nature 
exerts herself with all the means at her command 
to get rid of the poison as soon as possible. Were 
it otherwise, were all the alcohol he had taken to 
remain, like arsenic or strychnine, in the system, a 
man's first debauch would probably be his last. He 
would die. 

The stomach, into which all food or drink passes, 
is composed of three membranes ; the outside one is 
called serous, the intermediate one the fibrous or 
muscular, and the inside one, the mucous mem- 
brane, to which reference already has been made. 
The fibrous membrane is composed of fibers which 
contract, and thus produce a wavy motion of the 
mucous membrane, causing the food to pass all over 
it. The mucous membrane is soft and velvety and 
is covered with indentations in which lie the gas- 
tric juices, which, immediately on the appearance 
of food, saturate it and change it into a grayish 
substance known as chyme. This, again, by others 
of the organs, is changed into a milky colored 
liquid called chyle. The chyle is separated from 



44 How Strong Drink Kills 

the refuse in the intestines, taken into the venous 
blood and so into the heart and thence into the 
lungs, where it is purified, and thence into the 
arteries and every fraction of the body, where it 
yields the nutrition it contains, such as albumen 
fibrine, fat, sugar and salt, to rebuild the tissues 
which are constantly being worn away by thought 
or labor. So, it will be seen, all is decomposition 
and rebuilding. That is life. Without decomposi- 
tion life could not exist. Alcohol, as we all know, 
arrests decomposition. Dead things are preserved 
in it. 

Alcohol has the quality that it does not submit to 
necessary variations ; it does not change in the stom- 
ach. The alcohol in a drink of whiskey or beer or 
any other intoxicant coming in contact with the 
mucuous membrane is soon absorbed into the cir- 
culation and a battle begins at once between the 
system and the indestructible foe. The alcohol 
leaves a vitiated mucous deposit over the lining of 
the stomach, which, as a man continues drinking, 
becomes darker, harder and thicker, weakening the 
functions of secretion and excretion. The healthy 
work of the system is checked. Additionally, ul- 
cers form beneath the dark deposit, which eat at 
the mucous membrane until it sloughs away. Then 
the ulcers begin to eat and rot the next membrane, 
the fibrous, until it is similarly destroyed. Then 
the drinker dies. This is one of the ways in which 



How Strong Drink Kills 45 

alcohol kills. In some cases the disease of the 
stomach takes the form of fatty degeneration. Then 
the mucous membrane is covered with a layer of 
fat, sometimes two inches thick. That also means 
death. Beer and ale drinkers are more likely to be 
affected in this way. 

The liver is sometimes the immediate sufferer. 
The function of this organ is the secretion and 
proper disposition of bile. With alcohol in the 
system changes are produced in the liver inducing 
a fatty degeneration, making it sometimes as large 
as two. It becomes helpless. It cannot do its work. 
Or, it may be that the change takes the form of 
cirrhosis, when the liver becomes smaller and more 
dense in fibre, hardened to uselessness. A man can- 
not live without a working liver. 

The function of the kidney is to eliminate from 
the juices and fluids of the system the deadly nitro- 
genous substances. It is the organ perhaps most 
easily and swiftly affected by the presence of al- 
cohol. It overacts in forcing out the poison, and 
the consequences are assured and terrible. A 
healthy kidney has a fatty membrane about it, for 
lubrication. When alcoholized, fatty degeneration 
comes, this membrane enlarges sometimes to an inch 
or more in thickness, the interior of the organ be- 
comes crowded and clogged by still more fat, and 
it can no longer do its work. Then comes dropsy 
or diabetes — and death. 



46 How Strong Drink Kills 

A portion of alcohol taken into the system goes 
to the brain. Its effect is almost instantaneous. It 
induces temporary exaltation. It dulls the percep- 
tions, bewilders the intellect and does away with the 
reasoning powers and the sense of right and wrong. 
It makes the drinker sometimes lower than the 
brute. Its use continued, the brain becomes dis- 
eased, sometimes delirium comes, but few men die 
with delirium tremens. They die before they get 
so far, though often the insanity is permanent. The 
very substance of the brain is changed. It becomes 
what might be called "pickled" in alcohol. The 
cells melt together and the convolutions are some- 
times entirely lost. In post-mortems the experi- 
ment has been tried of pressing a spoon upon a 
drunkard's brain until it was filled* with liquid. 
Upon the application of a match this liquid bursts 
into flame. It is alcohol. The drinkers whose 
minds go before their bodies are numbered by thou-l 
sands, but what kills the brain will inevitably kill 
the body later. 

Thus alcohol kills mechanically; it affects the 
stomach, liver, kidney and brain, and the entire di- 
gestive system, selecting the weakest organ it finds 
for its simplest and deadliest work. There is 
variety to its murders, but the death list is assured. 
Close estimates show that between one hundred and 
fifty thousand and two hundred thousand men and 
women die annually in the United States from the 



How Strong Drink Kills 



47 



direct effect of strong drink. This does not in- 
clude the great host who, from its influence, suc- 
cumb easily to other diseases, because, with systems 
enfeebled by alcohol, they are incapable of resist- 
ance, nor has it any reference to the host, greater 
still, whose sufferings from drink are such that even 
death might be relief. The direct deaths are 
enough. 

The thousands who are walking to their execu- 
tion do not realize it. That is the strange and start- 
ling thing about it all. This is an intelligent peo- 
ple yet how few the proportion who understand 
what is told here of the simple manner in which al- 
cohol eats away or clogs the organs of the body so 
that health or continued life becomes impossible. 
The account is, for their own salvation, what all 
should be taught, what all should know. It is so 
plain, so surely comprehensible, so non-disputable, 
and conveys such frightful warning. 

Alcohol is a poison; it is nothing more nor less, 
though hosts of drinkers may not yet be dead. 
There is no possible compensation for its use. It 
is not a food; it is not a beneficial stimulant; it is 
not an aid to digestion. It is a murderer in disguise, 
and how it slays has been related. 

Among the most thorough and reliable among 
investigators as to the effects of alcoholic beverages, 
is Dr. G. D. Lockie, whose writings on the subject 
are widely known. He calls attention to the fact 



48 How Strong Drink Kills 

that delirium tremens and delusional alcoholics 
seen on the streets and in the police stations are, lit- 
erally, less known in their pathology than leprosy 
or Asiatic cholera. He explains that every toxic 
poisoning resulting from alcohol is both a physical 
and psychical concussion to the brain centers and 
is the beginning of both organic and functional 
changes which may go on rapidly or slowly to 
serious degenerations and disease. He quotes vari- 
ous cases showing that alcohol has a cumulative ac- 
tion when used in moderation or excess over a long 
period. A young man who had been under treat- 
ment for alcoholism and who had made a splendid 
improvement, had all the functions apparently nor- 
mal. He had not taken liquor in any form for 
twelve days. While attending a five cent theatre 
and watching moving pictures, he was taken with 
delirium tremens of a violent form, from which he 
was relieved only by the most heroic treatment. 

"The hereditary influence of alcoholism," says 
Dr. Lockie, "has not received the attention it merits 
from the profession, although our literature is rich 
with it. There is scarcely a nervous or mental con- 
dition which may not arise in the children of in- 
ebriates and no chronic disease which may not at 
some point be influenced to a greater or less degree 
by the fact that the patient or his antecedents have 
used alcohol in some form. 

"I have seen but few cases of constant drinkers 



How Strong Drink Kills 



49 



who do not show some heart or circulatory disturb- 
ance. These may be purely functional and soon 
clear up after alcoholics are discontinued, and they 
may show any form or degree of organic changes. 
Take the case of a section hand who had been a hard 
worker for a number of years on the road. He 
drank beer and some little whiskey. He was con- 
sidered a fine specimen of manhood by his friends. 
A position as tower man was asked for by him, and 
when another employee was given the place he was 
so depressed that he began drinking hard. In a few 
months he developed an acute dilatation of the 
heart. He was taken to the hospital and remained 
there until compensation was partially established, 
but this was too slow a process for his pocketbook 
and he went out to do light work, when a second 
time the heart muscle gave way with death in a few 
weeks. Nearly every intoxicated person will show, 
on careful examination, some valvular disturbance, 
and it is certain that many of these become perman- 
ent or at least leave the subject with a tendency in 
that direction. 

"It is a well known fact that mortality in injuries 
and in fevers is greatly increased and complications 
much more liable in those addicted to the use of 
alcohol than in abstainers. I am convinced that 
many obscure conditions which we are not able to 
find a good cause for, may quite often be traced to 
alcoholism, and that if we would give alcoholism 



50 How Strong Drink Kills 

as permanent and important a place in our history 
as we do syphilis and venereal disease we will soon 
find it a great factor in many obscure conditions, 
where it has not heretofore been considered." 

Strong drink makes the whole physical man ab- 
normal. The glassy eye, the flushed or the ghastly 
look, the tremulous gait — all the results of a pickled 
brain, diseased kidneys, enlarged or shriveled liver, 
and a ruined stomach — these are the evidences, the 
deadly import of which is unregarded by the drink- 
ers. This is because the alcohol which is destroy- 
ing their bodies has also bereft them of their sense 
of perception and their reasoning powers. They 
are blind and helpless. Something must be done. 
Suicide is being committed on a gigantic scale. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GREATEST CRIMINAL. 

One of the greatest criminals in the world is the 
Government of the United States. It kills its hun- 
dreds of thousands annually, knowingly, willfully, 
deliberately. In addition to those it slays, it crip- 
ples millions, mentally and physically. Uncle Sam 
— let us thus personify the Government in the popu- 
lar phrase — is one of the most callous murderers 
of whom history has made account. No tyrant of 
old times, full of blood-lust, could compare with 
him in actual accomplishment. No plague, count- 
ing the years together, has equaled his grim record. 
And he is still slaying. 

This is harsh language, but it is true. This is 
not diatribe ; this is no bald assumption unsupport- 
able by figures; this is fact. Uncle Sam, with a 
family of some eighty millions people, is killing 
great hosts of them annually, and he does it by 
feeding them alcohol. It is true that he does not 
literally force it down their throats; but he kills 
them as one kills a dog with poisoned meat, by leav- 
ing temptation in their way. 

Theoretically, there is not — and there never has 
been — a finer entity than Uncle Sam. His reputa- 

51 



52 The Greatest Criminal 

tion is world-wide for uprightness, for benevolence, 
for good intent in all ways. Why, then, is he guilty 
of this monstrous crime? What is his excuse in 
law or in fact? How can the thing be possible? He 
does it for money! That is the answer. It is true 
that Uncle Sam is but another name for an adminis- 
tered government, and that certain laws are quoted 
in his behalf ; but the record made is none the less 
appalling. And all for money! 

It costs a great deal to carry on the Government 
of the United States — hundreds of millions annu- 
ally; and, to obtain this money, the people must be 
taxed, in one form or another. Years ago it was 
decided that much of the vast sum required might 
be obtained by licensing the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating liquors, and legislation to that end 
followed. Whoever wished might engage in the 
production of what is the greatest curse of civilized 
mankind, provided only that he paid for the privi- 
lege. No limit was set to the production; and, 
since there is no limit to the cupidity of a portion 
of mankind, the production of whiskey and other 
intoxicants in the United States has grown to such 
enormous proportions that the nation has become 
debauched. Now has come to the people of the 
whole country something like a realization of the 
prodigious evil, increasing all the time, and, with 
its fuller comprehension, has arisen a sudden and 
wide-spread and earnest demand that the evil must 






The Greatest Criminal 



53 



cease, that Americans should no longer be subject 
to influences tending to make a nation of drunk- 
ards, that laws should be repealed or enacted, as the 
need may be, protecting the community, and pro- 
tecting the individual from himself. The wave, 
clean and strong as a wave of the ocean, has grown 
in volume, and State after State has adopted prohi- 
bition laws. The great movement is increasing in 
height and depth and sweep. It will extend all 
over. 

But how about the General Government? What 
has Uncle Sam to say? 

The Federal Government, even with the prohi- 
bition movement so imposing and demanding, does 
not, officially, know that it exists. As already 
stated, one great item of the revenue of the United 
States comes from the heavy tax imposed on those 
who manufacture and sell intoxicating liquors. 
There must, for instance, be no distilleries other 
than those doing business under the eyes of United 
States officials, yet they may have a license any- 
where if they but pay the national tax, and obey 
the national rules. The man in a prohibition State 
can get a distillers' license, and, if he meet all the 
designated requirements, go ahead and manufacture 
there on as great a scale as in any other State. What 
the State authorities may or may not do to him is 
quite another matter. The Federal Government 



54 The Greatest Criminal ' 

neither knows nor cares. All Uncle Sam has to 
say is — "I want the money." 

Could a situation more anomalous or more mon- 
strous be imagined? A large proportion of the 
people of the United States, realizing the degree 
of a present evil and fearing its extension, have 
taken action by States in self-protection, yet find 
themselves, to an extent, helpless because of the 
attitude of a power of which they are a part, but 
to the decrees of which they are subordinate. Some 
of the States are engaged in war: the United States 
is aiding and abetting the enemy. 

But it is not alone in the matter of allowing the 
manufacture of intoxicating liquor anywhere that 
the National Government puts an obstacle in the 
way of the reform movement of the people. There 
is another and hardly less obstructive bar. There 
are certain laws regulating commerce between the 
States, the observance of which the Federal Gov- 
ernment takes under its own supervision. Neces- 
sarily this is one of the consequences of the Union, 
else there would be no United States. So it comes 
that liquor may be shipped into a prohibition State, 
even if intoxicants may not be manufactured there. 
This extraordinary condition of affairs has led to 
many varying decisions in the lower courts, and 
there are many points not yet definitely settled as to 
how far Inter-State Commerce principles may over- 
ride State prohibition laws, in actual practice. But 



The Greatest Criminal 55 

that the shipment of liquor into a prohibition State 
is one of the things possible everywhere, and that 
its effect is more or less to offset the object of the 
State's legislation, is a simple fact admitting of no 
discussion. So, not only the manufacture but the 
distribution of intoxicating liquor goes on merrily 
under the supervision of the Federal Government. 

Uncle Sam stands in the way of the salvation 
of his own people. He not only encourages the 
manufacture of alcoholic stimulants and allows all 
display of the provocative in non-prohibition 
States, but provides, tentatively, for its manufacture 
and distribution in those States where the people 
are trying to make conditions enabling Americans 
to be what they should be — healthy and splendid 
men and women, unaffected, either by themselves 
or through others, by the effect of alcohol on the 
human being, something which has brought more 
sorrow, more suffering, and more shame to human- 
ity than any other cause of any kind. One of the 
most educated, most intelligent, and most alert and 
perceptive nations of the world has awakened to 
its peril, and its own government, under existing 
conditions, is opposing its regeneration. Uncle 
Sam views the case simply from the financial stand- 
point. Let us see how far he is justified in his atti- 
tude. 

Admitted that millions of dollars come annually 
to the Government through toleration and taxation 



56 The Greatest Criminal 

of the liquor industry. Is Uncle Sam the gainer by 
if for a moment? No. Even from the hardest 
financial point of view, the arrangement is a bad 
one — unprofitable in every way. A prosperous 
people may be taxed easily to support their govern- 
ment and institutions. The annual consumption 
of liquor in the United States takes from the mater- 
ial prosperity of the masses many times the sum 
required to make the nation rich enough to bear an 
added burden, offsetting the revenue from distil- 
leries and other alcoholic plants. In accepting a 
portion of his revenue from the liquor makers and 
liquor dealers, Uncle Sam is crippling his own 
people a thousand times more than he relieves them. 
Who does not know that a saloon would not exist 
if it did not pay? A saloon in a city may pay an 
annual license of a thousand dollars, and liquor 
advocates point to the fact that the thousand dollars 
swells the school fund or the street- repairing or any 
other fund. They do not point to the bridewell, 
the almshouse, and the penitentiary, which that 
saloon has helped to fill. Yet to support bride- 
wells and almshouses and penitentiaries costs far 
more than is collected from the liquor dealers and 
the saloon is everywhere a bad investment. Nation- 
ally, how much worse the case! 

There are no words to express the evil wrought 
by the liquor habit in the United States. The most 
rabid anti-prohibitionists do not, because they can- 



The Greatest Criminal 



57 



not, deny the startling figures. The record is plain, 
both in the statistics of money annually expended 
in drink — money which is not invested, but which 
is absolutely thrown away — and in the cost to the 
country of lost energy and work and worth. But 
these are the lesser evils. 

It is the present destruction of human life, the 
ruin of careers, the suffering of hundreds of thou- 
sands, the threatened decadence of a nation — these 
are the facts that appal. The slave of drink is an 
easy prey to disease in any form. Tuberculosis, 
pneumonia, any malady, finds him an awaiting vic- 
tim. Alcohol does the work, and Uncle Sam is an 
accessory. He is killing his own people. 

When alcohol does not enable disease to kill im- 
mediately, it shortens life. Even the so-called 
"moderate drinker" has his years curtailed by his 
indulgence. The statistics of insurance companies, 
and statistics from other sources as reliable, prove 
it. To take ten years from the life of each of a mil- 
lion men is equivalent to taking the lives of 250,000 
men. Again is Uncle Sam a murderer. 

Alcohol breeds criminals. A large proportion 
of the inmates of jails and penitentiaries admittedly 
owe to drink their first step toward the inevitable 
destination. Thousands and tens of thousands are 
ingulfed, and the decent portion of the community 
must bear the burden. Uncle Sam is responsible. 

Poverty is a necessary result of drink-made neg- 



58 The Greatest Criminal 

ligence and idleness and crime, poverty, not only 
of the one who drinks, but of the innocent, of those 
dependent on him, the women and the little chil- 
dren. Pauperism and indescribable suffering are 
on the increase. Again is Uncle Sam, the liquor 
broker, the one at whose door lies the blame. 

Alcohol is a greater producer of insanity than 
any other agent. The records prove it. Greed of 
wealth, demoralization, political indifference, and 
the connivance of the Government, have allowed 
alcoholism to spread. This is why the number of 
the alcoholic insane has grown fearfully. Society 
is full of persons soaked to the very marrow with 
alcohol. Even temporary intoxication is, in real- 
ity, a brief attack of lunacy; and, after repeated 
doses of alcoholic drink, the brain changes have 
a tendency to become permanent. The evil spreads 
because of the fostering care of Uncle Sam. 

The taste for alcohol is transmissible. The 
drunkard lays a curse upon his children. He sends 
out into the world dwarfed, degenerate, fallen be- 
ings, to be succeeded by their like it may be for 
generations before the inclination is extinguished, 
a deadly blow against the mental capital of a na- 
tion. The father is a weakened force, and he passes 
on his weakness. Yet brain capital ought to have 
a vastly higher value than financial capital. Every 
nation ought to strive to protect its brain from every 
harm. It is most fitting that social poisons, such 



The Greatest Criminal 59 

as alcohol and opium, should be regarded with dis- 
quietude by all good citizens ; and it is most reason- 
able that a movement should be organized to bring 
about their gradual prohibition. The thoughtful, 
the generous, the patriotic, are clamoring for such 
reform. Uncle Sam stands in the way. 

But all can be summed up in a sentence. The 
encouragement given by the National Government 
to the manufacture and distribution of alcohol in 
beverage form is threatening to an extent incredi- 
ble to those who have not given the subject study. 
It is the debauchery of a nation which is overload- 
ing itself with paupers, criminals, and insane. 

And yet there beats nowhere a greater heart than 
that in the bosom of Uncle Sam. He does good on 
a world scale. He is both almoner and protector. 
He assists the needy, and guards the imperiled. 
He sends a squadron tearing through the waters 
of the Mediterranean to succor the perishing in- 
habitants of earthquake-smitten Reggio and Mes- 
sina. If there be starvation in Finland, his food- 
bearing vessels reach a Finnish port as quick as 
steam can force them. If there be famine in dis- 
tant India, his grain-laden ships are hurried away 
upon the same beneficent errand. He guards his 
own abroad. Let an American citizen be endan- 
gered in a foreign country, and one of his warships 
goes frowning into port, and his State Department 
has something imperative to say at once. He even 



60 The Greatest Criminal 

seeks earnestly, in many ways, to promote the wel- 
fare of his people at home. His weather service 
advises and keeps from shipwreck the ships upon 
the waters; his life-saving crews are alert and help- 
ful upon thousands of miles of sea-coast and on the 
shores of the inland lakes; his rangers protect vast 
areas from fires, and save the forests for future 
generations; he irrigates millions of acres of barren 
desert, transforming them into fertile lands for his 
farmers' use; he battles with plagues; his servants 
risk their lives in experiments determining how 
yellow fever may be prevented; he takes a whole 
city in his hands, and cleanses San Francisco of its 
deadly, germ-carrying rats. He makes pure-food 
laws, and enforces them. He does good. But, as 
if to offset these many deeds for which the people 
should rise up and call him blessed, he fosters and 
encourages the greatest evil of all — the making and 
consumption of alcoholic drinks. His centralized 
power gives him the opportunity, and he seizes 
upon it. He wants the money. But is money of 
more importance than human life? What would 
the f ramers of the Constitution of the United States 
have thought or done could they have had some 
conception of one result of the power they be- 
stowed, some idea of the present extension of the 
liquor evil, enabled by the consent and with the 
approbation of the General Government? 

But the bane need not be permanent. The money 



The Greatest Criminal 61 

that comes from alcohol can easily be secured by 
cleaner and better methods, and with the eager con- 
sent of the tax-paying community. Of course the 
laws must be changed. The issuing of a license to 
a distillery anywhere, without discretion or re- 
straint, should not be a thing allowable and there 
must be changes in the Inter-State commerce laws, 
which, as framed, are an obstacle in the way of 
definitely and thoroughly enforced prohibition. 
While intoxicants can be shipped from anywhere 
into a prohibition State an absolutely effective 
prohibitory law can hardly be enforced. Somehow, 
in some way, the local forces will be eluded, and 
those who wish to drink alcoholic liquors will do 
so. It may be made more difficult for them to 
gratify their appetites, and they may be subjected 
to what they will consider a tyrannous surveillance ; 
but they will not be thwarted. The laws must be 
more than modified. 

And all this may seem a too harsh arraignment, 
biased and impetuous. Such is not the case. What 
is said here is justified by the facts. The situation 
is pitiful. It is threatening. For the sake of the 
whole people, for the nation's sake, a remedy must 
be found. 



CHAPTER VI. 

WHY PROHIBITION DOES NOT PROHIBIT. 

Firstly and primarily, why prohibition — the 
means for checking the drink evil adopted in some 
states by the majority, those who think and who care 
for the good of others of their kind — fails so largely 
in its results is, as already said, that it is too effec- 
tively opposed by the General Government of the 
United States. It makes the prohibition movement 
ineffectual by crippling it. It will not allow it to 
become a complete being. It cuts off its arms or 
legs. It dismembers. More than tlrat, it gives 
weapons and furnishes subsistence to its enemies. 

Consider the situation as it actually exists. A 
state takes an attitude for temperance and the pub- 
lic good by the enactment of strong prohibitory 
laws. What follows ? That state, like all the others, 
is supposed to be an individuality, and so it would 
be, regulating absolutely its own affairs, were it 
not one of a group of forty-eight, assembled and 
directed under an admitted higher power. The 
situation of the states is very much is if each of them 
were a company in a regiment. Independent they 
are in most ways. There are many things the Col- 
onel must not do to them, for there are the Articles 

62 



Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 63 

of War — in this illustration the Constitution — but 
they have nothing to say as to the direction of a 
march, or when and where and how or for what 
reason an enemy shall be engaged. Any soldier in 
the regiment may be a drunkard or a sober man but 
he cannot force one of his comrades to follow his 
example. The Colonel could and should enforce 
sobriety, with all its blessings. 

Does the Federal Government — Colonel Uncle 
Sam — seek sobriety in the regiment whose general 
health and welfare should be the first and greatest 
object of his solicitude? Hardly! He not only de- 
clines to interfere with the drunkards but he forces 
liquor upon the temperate. It may be that he has 
not yet the power to make the drunkards sober, 
but he has the power to make the sober drunkards. 
He can accomplish this by keeping liquor con- 
stantly before them and supplying them with all 
of it they want, and this he is doing, with results 
which are infinitely sad and deadly. There is not 
■ — counting each state a man — a thoroughly tem- 
perate and healthy soldier in his command, earn- 
estly as most of them may seek to reform them- 
selves. The condition is grievous; it is infamous, 
and the fault is with the Colonel. 

But the condition can be made altogether differ- 
ent. We can change the Colonel's character. We 
are Colonel Uncle Sam. Prohibition can never 
prohibit except when promoted on a national scale. 



64 Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 

So much for the General Government, in a gen- 
eral way, but there are other reasons, more local, 
why prohibition does not prohibit, though, of 
course, their origin is always in the condition al- 
ready indicated. The matter of adjacent territory 
under different laws is one of the strongest of con- 
siderations in the matter. From time immemorial 
smuggling has been one of the wicked industries of 
civilization. Uncle Sam has made smuggling be- 
tween adjacent states a business of importance, just 
as it was formerly between France and England, 
and gets most of the gain, like the silent capitalist 
whose storehouses were the caves of British cliffs, 
who supplied the money to adventurers who cared 
for neither God nor man and who, backed by their 
powerful friend, brought French brandy to British 
shores, taking all the risk, while their stately patron 
sat at ease, taking most of the profits. All the 
smugglers existent through all the mediaeval and 
later times had no such mighty or self-profiting 
patron as Uncle Sam. Frontiers here are easily 
crossed. A prohibition state lies next to one where 
all sorts of liquor may be manufactured and bought 
and sold or transported or handled in any way. 
There are none of the ancient guarded gateways of 
passage. One state may carry what it pleases across 
another — the Inter-State commerce laws attend to 
that — and so the smugglers may take in what they 
please to where they please and dispose of it as 




Copyright 1910. by W. R. Vansant. 

WHY PROHIBITION DOES NOT PROHIBIT 
For the sake of increasing his revenue alone, Uncle Sam pours liqour- 
making and liquor-selling privileges into every state. (They blush and 
struggle according to their shame.) 



Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 65 

they please, avoiding only local consequences or, if 
their recklessness go not so far, they may simply 
reach the border and, over an invisible line, pass 
the contraband goods across to a confederate. The 
contraband goods are always alcoholic liquors. 
Nothing else is contraband in the United States. 
Uncle Sam is a giant among smugglers 7 patrons 
and supporters. With a national law there would 
be no such borders. 

Again, the liquor once in the hands of those who 
make a profit upon it in prohibition states, there 
are the more or less watchful and efficient or hon- 
est state or local officials to be considered by the 
would-be offender. Experience has shown that a 
vast number of these officials are made, by what 
they receive for their silence or inactivity, but 
partners in the illicit traffic. They are elective offi- 
cers, their tenure of office may be brief, and there 
are many among them who decide that they must 
make hay while the sun shines. But suppose these 
officials were officers of the Federal Government, 
performing their duty under a national law. Would 
they take the risk of any non-performance of their 
duty or non-remembrance of their obligation to 
their national employer more than would any em- 
ployee in any custom-house today? The Federal 
Government has one merit, distinct in policy and 
action. The penitentiary yawns for the Federal 
employee who violates his faith, and a life place is 



66 Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 

not to be risked so readily, even by the conscience- 
less, as a place which may be lost at any election 
time through the caprice or wise judgment of the 
voters. Under a national law officials are usually 
honest. 

Politics has much to do with the non-enforce- 
ment of prohibitory laws. The saloon influence, 
the liquor influence generally, is a potent factor in 
the result of an election. The liquor forces are 
trained and work together, holding often the bal- 
ance of power, and are equally dreaded by either 
of the opposing parties in the field. What politi- 
cal "boss" is going to oppose such force in an 
emergency? No telling how an election may go or 
what laws may be repealed. Who, in a crisis, is 
going to enforce the laws too strictly against an 
element such as this? And so, prohibition law or 
no prohibition law, what should be watchful eyes 
are closed, the enforcing hand is stayed, and pro- 
hibition is made ineffective. Yet, with prohibi- 
tion made real, there would be no such liquor ele- 
ment to affect the issue of an election. It could do 
nothing, because non-existent, and would not be 
considered. The vital questions would be the 
things debated, and everywhere, in township, city, 
state or union, politics would be cleaner, better in 
every way, and more conducive to the general wel- 
fare in the results of battles over conflicting poli- 
cies. 



Why Prohibition Does Not Prohibit 67 

Such are the reasons why prohibition does not 
prohibit. They are apparent to all and they are 
most hurtful and disgraceful. Each and all, they 
are a discredit to the intelligence and the conscience 
of the American people. The presentation here of 
the reasons why state laws for the public good can- 
not be enforced is not news ; it is but a grouping to- 
gether of facts with which we are all familiar, of 
conditions which are intolerable and which should 
no longer be endured. The remedy is plainly 
enough in sight for it suggests itself in the account 
of the real source of all these evils, evils which 
ramify in all directions, from the very nature of 
the case. What will end one will end another. 
They have the same parentage. Their father is the 
Federal License for the manufacture and sale of 
liquor. Kill him and you slay his brood. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHY? 

Why is it that Uncle Sam is so careful, so pains- 
taking and ever scrupulous, in recognizing and re- 
specting all state laws except those which prohibit 
the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors? 
Why does he make an exception so flagrant and 
insulting? 

Such anomaly in central administration, such 
continued exhibition of contempt for the statutes 
for home government made by any of. its parts or 
people cannot be found in any other country in the 
world. No other nation would tolerate such a con- 
dition. Could it be supposed that England, for 
instance, would dare conflict with any of her colo- 
nies by ignoring and stultifying laws passed by any 
one of them for the betterment of its local condi- 
tions? England, France or Germany would not ven- 
ture such a course. Much lesser disregard for the 
welfare and the rights of semi-independent states 
has, more than once in the past, led, in the end, to 
bloody revolution. 

The condition is aggravated by the fact that 
Uncle Sam does not for a moment question the 

68 



Why? 69 

right of the states to enact and enforce such laws 
as here referred to. When a state declares by stat- 
ute that intoxicating liquor shall be neither made 
nor sold within its borders Uncle Sam is not 
aroused. He speaks no word of warning. He gives 
no ultimatum. He does not threaten: "You are 
wrong; you have no authority to pass such laws; 
you are infringing upon my Federal rights !" He 
acquiesces in what the state has done, tacitly con- 
ceding the fact that it has not exceeded its own just 
and undoubted powers. The expression on his face 
is but sardonic. He knows what he is going to do! 

Now, what is it that he does? His action which 
follows is as grotesque and illogical as it is brutal 
and indefensible, something without a parallel in 
the history of civilized modern government, some- 
thing which, not long ago, would have been thought 
impossible, something incredible under our con- 
stitution. 

After admitting the right of the states to make 
and administer their own liquor laws, after con- 
ceding this,. Uncle Sam promptly and carelessly 
proceeds to make such laws ridiculous and inef- 
fective. He deliberately ignores them. He exer- 
cises the right of brute force. Armed with a higher 
power than the state possesses, he allows invasion 
of its territory by an army of mercenaries, weap- 
oned with his tax receipts, which are, in effect, but 
a pledge of neutrality and an implied permission 



70 Why? 

to loot and slay to all who will take the risk of 
facing state conditions. They may manufacture or 
sell strong drink when or where they please. State 
statutes they may jeer at and defy. They are of a 
class the most reckless and vicious in instinct that 
can be described. They are criminals, one and all. 
Yet Uncle Sam protects them. Are they not loot- 
ing in his behalf? Will not a portion of the plun- 
der come to him, a pitifully small portion, it is true, 
but still a portion. A bandit leader must divide 
the spoil. 

What may happen to his mercenaries does not 
concern Uncle Sam. Once enrolled in the ranks of 
his lawless horde, each individual must look out 
for himself. The right of a state to determine what 
the nature of its own licenses— if it issue any — shall 
be is not disputed. Whether a state or county or 
city charges one dollar or a thousand for the right 
to deal in intoxicants is a matter of perfect indif- 
ference to him. He has his own affairs to look 
after, his own extensive plundering to do. Outside 
of that, he is indifferent, apathetic, callous. 

Some years ago, when more than one state or 
territory was struggling to free itself from Mor- 
monism, which carried with it polygamy, Uncle 
Sam was called upon for assistance in abolition of 
the practice. He refused such assistance prompt- 
ly, declaring that the action contemplated was the 
duty of the state alone and that he could in no way 



Why? 71 

interfere. That may have been all right. But he 
did not supplement that declaration by issuing li- 
censes for the practice of polygamy by everybody! 

It is admitted that monarchial government would 
oppose any preparation for war by any of its de- 
pendencies against itself. Uncle Sam would have 
the instant right to crush a state arming itself for 
war against the Union. Yet liquor selling is prac- 
tically a continued and devastating war against the 
Union. Its cost, its duration considered, is greater 
in life and treasure than even that of the gigantic 
civil struggle from which we years ago emerged. 
It is in dire progress today, but Uncle Sam pays no 
attention to it. Is the Liquor Interest more immune 
from punishment than a state would be? 

What is the cause of this intolerable condition? 
Why is it that Uncle Sam is not merely indifferent 
as to what is going on, but is grossly oppressive in 
addition, in that he insists that the enemy shall 
have his way? Why his worse than carelessness, 
his lax methods, his bald encouragement of crime? 
There is but one answer to the question ; it is clear 
as crystal ; there can be no other; it is what has been 
given already and repeatedly; it is for money that 
he takes such overbearing attitude. The money 
for his tax fee is what he has in mind, that and 
nothing else. He seeks money, blood money, for 
such it is, flowing in torrents; the country is bleed- 
ing to death. 



72 Why? 

Was ever such stress, such imminence, such an 
extraordinary and seemingly impossible condition 
of things before, in any land, a mistaken govern- 
ment cutting the throats of its own people with a 
wrong idea of gain? It is fearfully absurd; it is 
out of all reason. There is not even vicious logic to 
it. It is unsound, considered from the hard finan- 
cial point of view alone. Why, for every dollar 
Uncle Sam gets from the wolf pack's license the 
states pays twenty-five from their own treasuries in 
care for the criminals, the insane and the paupers — 
and the states are part of Uncle Sam. Blind, self- 
confident, unreasoning and arrogant, he is sapping 
the springs of his own life! 

These accusations and the grim facts supporting 
them are here set forth in their blunt truthfulness 
that Uncle Sam — the people — may be brought to 
some degree of realization of where we are and of 
what we are enduring. We do not comprehend 
the ghastliness and the needlessness of it all. Uncle 
Sam is haughtily and fatally unconscious as was 
Belshazzar at the feast which ended with his de- 
struction. It is incomprehensible! We have, 
seemingly, lost our sense of perception and our 
reasoning powers. In a crisis the gravity of which 
can hardly be described, Uncle Sam, whom we 
have come to look upon as a mighty entity, some- 
thing personal and exalted, allows everything to 
drift along under the impression that he, the Great 



Why? 73 

I Am — which is we, the people — can do no wrong.. 
Never was a greater error, never a view more false 
or dangerously mistaken. We are guilty of an 
enormous evil. What is the result of an applica- 
tion of common sense and ordinary reason in con- 
sidering the case? The drunkenness of a people is 
either right or wrong, the abetting of such drunk- 
enness by a government is either right or wrong. 
No one is so debased as to make contention that 
either drunkenness or its maintenance is right. Then 
it is wrong, and, in this country, on a scale so vast 
that it beggars all description. What, then, are 
we — Uncle Sam — going to do about it? 

A very great majority of the American people 
are honest, earnest, of good intent and patriotic to 
the core. Once convinced and aroused, they act. 
On the liquor question they have been uninformed. 
This is because of thoughtlessness and of various 
deceptive or malignant influences and conditions. 
In the first place, the evil has extended gradually 
through the years. We do not notice the growth 
of a tree beside the door. It appears always about 
the same to us, if we but see it daily, though its 
girth and height may have trebled and then quad- 
rupled, and it may be a Upas tree at that! Again, 
ten thousand facts have been suppressed in the in- 
terests of those who deal in alcohol in any of its 
forms. Finally and chiefly, the open sanction by 
the government of the deadly traffic has induced a 



74 Why? 

natural impression that it may be, though regret- 
table, at least possibly allowable. Our eyes have 
been blinded, our senses benumbed. 

With sight restored, with reason cleared, with 
full comprehension of the enormous loss and suf- 
fering of the present, of the greater peril of what 
may come and of the attitude, stolid, disdainful 
and imbecile, of Uncle Sam — and we, the sufferers 
— let it be repeated again and again — are Uncle 
Sam, though too long regardless of the fact — the 
question is repeated what are we going to do? 
Something must be done, and soon. This is not a 
nation of suicides. The imperative course to 
take will suggest itself to any reasoning mind. 
We will make a new man of Uncle Sam— ourselves 
— and the man we make will be no stolid, con- 
scienceless and avaricious being, no panderer, no 
trafficker in vice, but a clean American, a big 
American, regardful of the welfare of himself and 
of his own. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AS IMPARTIAL AS THE GUILLOTINE. 

A dire feature of the mental and bodily deaths 
caused by alcohol is that its most assured victims 
are among those whom the world can least afford 
to lose. They are the men of brain, of keen per- 
ceptions and strong feelings and desires, of tense 
nerves and swift responsiveness. It is a quoted 
maxim of the great physicians who have made the 
subject a study that "the effects of alcohol upon a 
man are according to the strength of his emotions." 
These, the emotional, the feeling, the broad-minded, 
made to accomplish great things, princes who 
might become kings among men, are the ones most 
certain to go down when once in the clutch of the 
drink habit. The story is as old as history. From 
Alexander the Great to Coleridge and De Quincey 
and Poe down to today, the record is the same. 
There is no limit to the list of blasted lives of rising 
great men. Like the death he represents, alcohol 
loves most a shining mark. 

These men, capable of vast accomplishment, are 
so because of the very qualities which make them 
drunkards. Their susceptibility to all things in- 
cludes susceptibility to the influence of liquor, and 

75 



76 Impartial as the Guillotine 

their nerves and brains are so constituted that they 
are most easily and permanently affected and that, 
once so impaired, the clamor for further stimulant 
becomes imperative, either as an aid to accomplish- 
ment or to secure release from pain. They are not 
unreasoning, they know that the artificial strength 
and activity of mind or the cessation of unendur- 
able agony is secured at greater cost than the im- 
mediate reward or release may be, but they cannot 
help themselves. They appeal to others, to the 
wise, well knowing what the response will be, but 
there is a degree of solace if not aid in the mere 
discussion. Here, for instance, is something most 
interesting in his answer to a letter received by the 
greatest of authorities, the famous scientist, Thomas 
Henry Huxley: 

a DEAR Sir: I understand that you ask me what 
I think about 'alcohol as a stimulant to the brain 
in mental work?' 

"Speaking for myself (and perhaps I may add 
for persons of my temperament) , I can say, with- 
out hesitation, that I would just as soon take a dose 
of arsenic as I would of alcohol, under such cir- 
cumstances. Indeed, on the whole, I should think 
the arsenic safer, less likely to lead to physical and 
moral degradation. It would be better to die out- 
right than to be alcoholised before death. 

"If a man cannot do brain work without stimu- 
lants of any kind, he had better turn to hand work." 



Impartial as the Guillotine 11 

So wrote the man whose word commanded the 
attention of all the world on such a subject. 

A pitiful thing, too, is the fact that the suffering 
of these men worth saving is tenfold greater when 
recovering temporarily from indulgence than is 
that of grosser natures. Their's the appalling men- 
tal visions, the recognition of their own weakness 
and degradation, the shame, the resolves made only 
to be broken, the quivering of body and soul 
through successive agonizing stages until happily 
dissolution comes and the world has lost what might 
have been its pride. In all the story of the effect 
of drink upon humanity nothing exceeds in pathos 
the fate of the great-minded. 

But aside from all that touches the heart in this 
connection, there is something more important to 
be considered. The community, the state, the na- 
tion, must not lose any of the master workmen be- 
cause of the existence of a traffic so murderous in 
its effects as that in alcohol in any of its forms. Had 
Fulton been a drunkard how long might it have 
been before boats were propelled by steam? Had 
Morse been an early victim of strong drink might 
not the laggard mail yet be our only means of com- 
munication? Had Field been among the debased 
would ocean cables exist today? And so the list 
might be extended to any length, — Edison, Bur- 
bank, the Wrights, all those who have added to the 
world's material advancement, and following them 



78 Impartial as the Guillotine 

the statesmen, the thinkers, the great authors and 
all the commanding figures whose existence has 
aided in the promotion of humanity. Yet the num- 
ber of men who might have been their equals in 
all the fields of human aspiration and endeavor, 
had not their minds been early wrecked by alcohol, 
is something beyond computation. There are no 
data, there cannot be, but these men in hundreds 
existed and exist. We all know that. 

Can the country afford this sacrifice of so much 
of its needed mental force for the benefit of a few 
traders? Can we afford such sapping of the poten- 
tiality of the nation? 

So liquor ruins the hundreds whom nature has 
endowed with minds of more delicate fihre, powers 
of greater magnitude and aspirations higher than 
those of the mass, but none the less fearful are its 
effects upon those whose labor is only with the 
hands, the imported ignorant, it may be, but yet 
human beings and essential to the welfare of the 
country. Not theirs to drink at onyx bars in gilded 
saloons or to take champagne at table; not theirs 
to be led gently into the first steps in the down- 
ward path, but what they drink is alcohol just the 
same and the path upon which they enter has the 
same slope and the same pit at the end. 

The street laborers to whom beer is delivered 
daily from a wagon or who at the noon hour seek 
the nearest low saloon, to drink adulterated whis- 



Impartial as the Guillotine 79 

key; the thousands of workingmen from the manu- 
factories whose lunch consists not more of food 
than drink, the hosts of laborers to whom a practi- 
cally constant stimulant has become what they think 
a necessity — these are as much to be considered as 
those in higher walks and possessing greater power 
of thought. Individually one may not be worth so 
much to the community as the other but, collec- 
tively, the thing is equalized. 

Varied are the phases of the story of drink among 
the ignorant but all of them are fit illustrations of 
the result of the use of liquor. Aside from the drink- 
ing during the hours of labor what scenes are en- 
acted! What a picture is afforded when, at night 
or on a Sunday, a noisy, dangerous group is assem- 
bled in some workingman's home and a child, per- 
haps, is made to "rush the can" for those who have 
become but a little above the beasts, when what 
might have been made an abode in which happi- 
ness dwelt as much enthroned as in the stateliest 
home is transformed into what might be a cheap 
annex to an insane asylum, a place where all is 
thirst and foulness and where no child should be 
born or reared. What coarse bickerings and frays 
occur where might be only an exhibition of family 
gentleness and mutual happiness. What squander- 
ing of wages that might, eventually, secure a home 
and provision for old age but for the sake of 



80 Impartial as the Guillotine 

present sensual enjoyment, regardless of a threaten- 
ing future. 

Even the more elaborate pleasures of the drink- 
ing class present spectacles so grotesquely revolting 
as to afford a theme for the literature of those who 
write the story of the weak with strong hands. 
The gatherings of the "Pearl Dancing Club" in 
so-and-so's hall, where there is a bar and where a 
"bouncer" is a necessity, afford as strong an illus- 
tration of what liquor can do as can be found in 
graver surroundings. 

And the result of drinking in this class, what is 
it? The pawnbrokers can tell of the first happen- 
ings. The thin-faced mother or the ill-clad and 
starving children can tell. The blear-eyed brute, 
once a sturdy self-respecting workingman, who 
now comes staggering home, when he can, to seek 
the food he has not provided, tells it all as an object 
lesson. This is the beginning of the end. The 
almshouse or some charitable institution awaits 
most of the family. The husband comes home one 
night frenzied with drink and murders the woman 
who has borne his children and endured his blows, 
and the gallows and the grave-digger in potter's 
field attend to him and the story of one family is 
ended. 

The tragedy of the termination of the drunken 
workingman's career may not be so great as in the 
illustration just given. It may be only the account 



Impartial as the Guillotine 81 

of a resort to active evil, burglary or some similar 
violation of the law, for the crime of one of the 
class is necessarily one of force. The penitentiary 
is the goal. The records of our criminal institu- 
tions show that an enormous per cent of their in- 
mates owe their plight to the use of alcohol. 

What need be added? The picture given is not 
distorted nor enlarged. It is duplicated in the 
daily papers. 

The suffering individually of the class described 
is, of course, not so poignant as those of the man 
of intellect. The creature of coarser mold is spared 
the agony of much compunction and it is doubtful 
if even his physical suffering be as great as that of 
the other, but the evil done by the alcohol is there, 
an evil for which the federal government, as things 
are now, is largely responsible. The great question 
at issue is one which is of importance neither to one 
particular place nor grade of man. It includes all 
localities and every human being. The problem 
is as to the means of changing the condition every- 
where and for the good of everybody. It is not 
an easy one but it is not beyond solution. The 
peasant will be saved with the prince. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE "MODERATE" DRINKER. 

Always, perhaps often unconsciously, is the 
middle-aged moderate drinker a menace to himself, 
and an undesirable member of the community. 
This is a hard statement, but, consider the facts be- 
hind it. He mars his own fortunes, and under- 
mines his own health ; he does injustice to his fam- 
ily and his friends ; he may not himself be what is 
called a drunkard, but he assists in the making of 
drunkards all about him. He is both a weakling 
and a bad example. 

Why should he drink at all? If a man of even 
moderate intelligence, he knows that the introduc- 
tion of alcohol into his system has certain effects 
immediately upon the body, and, later, upon the 
mind, each injurious according to the individual, 
but never, under any circumstances, beneficial. 
Why, then, does he drink? 

Moderate, steady drinking is the result of a 
made disease. It follows a habit which has become 
more or less clamorous. It is a disease and its 
victim has fixed it upon himself by an indulgence, 
unthinking at first, and supplemented, when reflec- 
tion came, by a mistaken vanity. "I can restrain 

82 



The Moderate Drinker 83 

myself," he asserts ; "7 can keep within bounds. I 
can indulge myself where others cannot. I need 
an occasional stimulant and I can afford to take it." 
He is the most unfortunately mistaken man in the 
world. 

Ask the moderate drinker how the thing profits 
him, and he will answer that he has the comfort of 
it, and that, additionally, it adds to his enjoyment 
socially. He drinks with other men. Their com- 
panionship becomes closer. They appreciate each 
other's qualities. Relationships are improved. It 
is a good thing all around, and no harm done. Is 
what he says true? Hardly. 

What are the results of drinking companion- 
ship? Take, first, the purely material point of 
view, and make the estimate. Men who have been 
drinking even moderately see things about them 
with eyes the sight of which has become abnormal. 
False but sanguine views are taken. Under the 
liquor-exalted impulse of the moment, what fool- 
ish investments have been made, what unnecessary 
expenses incurred, what losing business ventures 
undertaken, what dangerous or hampering friend- 
ships pledged! What moderate drinker has not, 
when his mind has become cleared, and he is him- 
self again, realized shamefully what his so-called 
enjoyment has cost him, quite aside from his direct 
expense? He considers the undesirable acquaint- 
ance made, which he, because of some accompany- 



84 The Moderate Drinker 

ing circumstance, must continue for years to come. 
He thinks ruefully of the loan he made, in his 
gushing and effusive mood, to the man who will 
never pay him. He remembers that he promised 
to secure a position for some one, and knows that 
he must try to make good his word. He thinks of 
the fool whom he has invited to luncheon, and grits 
his teeth. Then, above all, and alarmingly, may 
possibly come sudden memory of the fact, that, 
under the inspiring influence of drink, he has gone 
security for one whose financial standing, to say, 
the least, is uncertain. These, and other things as 
blind and ill-considered, has he done, if not to- 
gether, at one time or another. And this is but one 
item in the account between the moderate drinker 
and his drinking. It is a presentation of the case 
from a purely business point of view. 

But there is another feeling, from other causes, 
which comes to the moderate or occasional drinker 
when cool reasoning is his again. It is a feeling 
not merely of regret over folly, but one of contri- 
tion and remorse. Recollection comes of the false 
views of life which arose when the drink had done 
its worst, of the distorted fancies, of the words used 
to the one dearest of all, of the family quarrel ancl 
the differences with friends and business associates. 
This is the gravest memory— the one carrying with 
it the greatest shame and sorrow. 

Yet one moderate drinker, whatever his standing 



The Moderate Drinker 85 

in the community, is only one. Those whom he in- 
duces to become drunkards are many. His care- 
less crime is a far greater matter than is his mis- 
fortune. What is it to him what his example does? 
None is more merciless toward the recognized 
drunkard than is the moderate drinker. He is ruth- 
less and unfeeling. "Weak-minded, or a fool!" he 
calls the one who cannot control his appetite. In 
his vanity he sometimes divides society into three 
classes — the foam, the young, wealthy dissolute; 
the solid, respectable mass ; and the refuse, the bot- 
tom layer of society, the uneducated and unintelli- 
gent, the lower order of mankind, those with whom 
any indulgence in liquor may end in an explosion 
of drunkenness. He, however — he, the moderate 
drinker — calmly assumes that he is neither foam 
nor slime, that he is the sea itself, deep and unaf- 
fected, and bearing the world's fortunes. The sea? 
He is only a fish in the waters. 

Drunkards come from all classes. None is ex- 
empt. Simply because of the proportionate num- 
bers, there are tens of thousands of drunkards 
among those who should have been, if they are not, 
what we call "solid" citizens. As to the dregs, they 
are dregs, usually, because drink made them so. 
Their status is an effect instead of a cause. The 
records of the almshouses and the jails and the 
asylums prove it. And the moderate drinker is 
largely responsible for their condition. 



86 The Moderate Drinker 

Always, or nearly so, the drinking habit begins 
from imitation. A young man's first drink, if not 
taken on a direct invitation from some one, is in- 
dulged in because of an observance of the habits of 
others. Take any youth, it matters not what his so- 
cial standing may be, whether he be educated or 
otherwise, weak or strong of mind and body, if he 
drink at all, he has been taught to do so either by 
dissipated companions or by the moderate drinker; 
and those ruined by the moderate drinker are those 
who can least be spared from the community, be- 
cause they are those with best preparation for life's 
duties, and owning the brightest prospects. These 
the moderate drinker lures by his example. The 
force of example, particularly that of a man who 
has a degree of the world's respect, is very strong. 
Of him the young man thinks, "He takes a drink 
when he feels like it, and no harm has come to him. 
Why should not I?" As he thinks, he acts. He is 
invited to drink, it may be, by the moderate drinker 
himself; but that does not matter either way. The 
example is before the young man, and he follows 
it. He too, he thinks, will be a moderate drinker; 
and so he is one — for a time. Then comes the in- 
evitable. 

There are men, some among the bravest, who 
cannot walk with safety along a dizzy height. 
Their senses leave them, in a way, and all the world 
is swimming. Where the accustomed workman — 



The Moderate Drinker 87 

stolid, it may be, and of no particular importance 
save in his own special field — moves easily about, 
as sure-footed as a mountain goat, the great states- 
man, the great general, the great man of any sort, 
would be dashed to death. The lesser man alone 
may tread the path. Such is a fit comparison, in- 
tellectually and in all ways, between those who fail 
and those who succeed in the attempt to become but 
moderate drinkers. 

The youth who sees the so-considered respectable 
element, business and professional men, sometimes 
church members as well, taking their drinks in the 
finer class of saloons and in restaurants with bar 
attachments, or in the home, leads himself to be- 
lieve that it is not only allowable to drink in that 
way, but that it is the manly and dignified and 
proper thing to do. So the habit forms. In time 
the habit becomes a thing fixed, and the beginner 
has become a moderate drinker. Then, later, comes 
another phase. He discovers that, if he does not 
get his drink with a certain degree of regularity, 
he misses something. The idea is ever in his mind. 
Here comes the crisis. In some cases the imperiled 
one may recognize his danger. He may even, to his 
sorrow, consult some moderate drinker of middle 
age, and is advised at once — "No danger at all! just 
exercise your will power," — and the thing goes on. 
What cares the middle-aged adviser as to the issue? 
He may see the youth getting deeper into what is 



88 The Moderate Drinker 

destruction every day, but he is calloused. Steady 
moderate drinking has deadened his sensibilities. 
"A man is a fool who drinks too much." He is 
not "his brother's keeper." And yet he, by his 
example, led the youth into the depths. 

Temperament will tell. Of those who begin 
drinking, resolved always to drink but moderately, 
a certain proportion will become drunkards, in the 
degree that makes the proportion of drunkards in 
the community, as inevitably as darkness descends 
on the face of the earth. Those who fall, as ex- 
plained elsewhere, are those possessing the strong- 
est and best characteristics, the youths of heart and 
brain and capacity and strong and sometimes over- 
mastering impulses. They are above and beyond 
the apathetic and unaffected. They should become 
the future great men of the world. There is but 
one thing to be dreaded for them. Their very 
qualities, their delicate sensations, and swift per- 
ceptions, confidence, and force, render them most 
susceptible to alcoholic influence — to become, in 
the end, its slaves. These are the men we need in 
the world's affairs; but these are the moderate 
drinker's victims. Others, those differently consti- 
tuted, may retain to the end of their lessened years 
the attributes of what is called the moderate 
drinker. They will, in turn, become the enticing 
criminals, setting the same example, and making 
of others the drunkards of the future, 



The Moderate Drinker 89 

The moderate drinker is self-congratulatory and 
self-satisfied; but he is foolish. The punishment 
merited by the evil of his example comes, even in 
this world. Behind him stalks the headsman. 
There will arrive, as sure as death, a time when his 
vanity departs, and he becomes apprehensive for 
himself, though he may not have the candor to con- 
fess it. If not utterly lacking in perception, he 
knows that he is not the equal of the healthy man of 
his own age. He attends the funerals of friends 
who have lived as he does and the sound of the 
clods upon their coffins speaks to him grimly. He 
knows that the moderate drinker, when disease as- 
sails him, is unfitted to resist its attacks. He has 
sapped his own vitality. A slight exposure, and 
resultant pneumonia, or any of half a hundred 
diseases, may end his life. He is weakened and 
defenceless, and he knows it. He has had abun- 
dant evidence of his condition. He has discovered 
that he cannot drink as much as he once did, with- 
out becoming drunk. Should he exceed a certain 
limit, his sleep is restless, his dreams are ghastly, 
and in the morning he arises, foul of mouth and 
parched of throat, trembling and nervous, and re- 
quiring further stimulant before feeling equal to 
the business of the day. He would avoid it, but he 
cannot. He feels that the need is imperative; and 
in that belief, in a sense, he is right. There is now 
mental and physical demand for alcohol in his case. 



90 The Moderate Drinker 

But that demand was not primarily there. He was 
not born with it. Moderate drinking brought about 
the mental and physical necessity for alcohol. It is 
the alcoholic victim in his system crying out for 
more poison as relief from that already taken. 
When he takes it, he feels better — until next time. 
Still he insists that he is not a drunkard. He is a 
slave. His habit is as fixed as that of the drunk- 
ard last arrested. It is a difference only of degree. 
He needs a regular stimulant, and he must have it. 
He may endeavor, at last, to do without it, and too 
often fails. 

It is usually between the ages of fifty and sixty 
that the ugly truth is revealed to the moderate 
drinker. If he drink at any time to excess now, 
nature's reprisal is swift and certain; for, if he 
f drink as much as he did when in his prime, he, in 
effect, drinks twice as much, because of his weak- 
ened power of resistance. The man of the age 
indicated undergoes not only a physical change, 
but a temperamental one. If he would enjoy long 
life and happiness, he must safeguard his nervous 
system. These are the years when he should be 
abstemious in the avoidance of all things harmful ; 
when he should indulge in no semblance of excess. 
He must be moderate in the gratification of all 
appetites and passions. He should be calm, cool, 
finely measured in his habits, and temperate and 
sober in every thought and deed. But this sort of 



The Moderate Drinker 91 

man he who has been a steady moderate drinker 
can seldom be. He has had his day. He insisted 
upon it. 

The most fearful thought that must come to the 
moderate drinker after he has passed middle age 
is that, for him, there cannot remain as many years 
of life as would be his had he been abstemious, and 
lived more in accordance with nature's laws. Even 
if his end does not come with the sudden assault of 
some disease that his weakened body cannot resist, 
even if he linger to senility, his days will be short- 
ened. He has taxed life's machinery so heavily 
that it will fail to work for its allotted time. The 
ebbing strength, the failing brain — these will most 
assuredly be his. Not for him the great and con- 
soling thought: 

"Grow old along with me: 

The best is yet to be, 

The last of life for which the first was made." 

No, the end of the moderate drinker is always 
well defined. It may come suddenly, or after suf- 
fering, but, in absolute truthfulness, the physician's 
death certificate should too often read, "Primarily, 
from alcoholism." The heart has ceased beating 
prematurely, and, in many cases, family and friends 
are relieved from more than is confessed. 

Yet, even to what might be nearly the end, the 
case of the moderate drinker must not be counted 
as always hopeless. The outlook is not in every in- 



92 The Moderate Drinker 

stance absolutely black. There are some — a few — 
whose conscience awakened and whose resolve en- 
forced at the eleventh hour, are enabled to exert 
a force sufficient to break the long-worn shackles 
and secure to themselves a useful and serene old 
age. The struggle must be bitter; but with each 
attempt comes greater strength, the will feeding 
itself, until freedom from the vicious enthrallment 
is permanently attained. The man is re-born. The 
halting step becomes a swinging stride once more, 
and the sodden brain, cleansed and revivified, per- 
forms its work again. And there is no finer man 
than the changed moderate drinker; none of better 
influence; none more fiercely opposed to the ex- 
tension of the evil which is the curse of the present, 
and the greatest menace to the growing generation. 
He is one of the real reformers — tolerant because 
he understands, and effective because he knows. 
He commands respect, because, though blundering 
with his life, he has realized the situation in all its 
bearings, and suffered ruggedly and won, and 
stands now a capable element for good. 

Surely the problem of the situation which makes 
the moderate drinker everywhere existent is as in- 
tricate as grave. He is but the product of the soil 
prepared for him, of a condition threatening and 
intolerable to the patriotic and far-seeing, per- 
mitted by lax statutes, and fostered by a central 
government obeying its own decrees but observing 



The Moderate Drinker 93 

no moral law. He is henbane, deadly nightshade, 
cultivated as assiduously as is any grain plant in 
the fields of the Department of Agriculture. He 
exists and flourishes, as a matter of course, because 
he is not only planted, but nourished — a noxious 
weed, overrunning a clean and mighty crop of 
growing men and women ! 

It is not well to speak too bitterly, even if im- 
personally, of the individual who only represents 
a type; but to each one of that type should be 
brought, in some way, a realization of the harm he 
is doing, and a sense of his responsibility. This is 
what the moderate drinker seems rarely to compre- 
hend, or, if he does, it is something which he 
utterly disregards. He admits no obligation in 
the matter, and the only force which can act upon 
him in the end must be that of public opinion, di- 
rectly or through the laws which public opinion 
dictates and enforces. Public opinion alone has 
accomplished every reform in the world, and lifted 
humanity to its present standing and degree of hap- 
piness. Impulsive sometimes — often, for the mo- 
ment, misguided — it always finally selects the path 
which is plainly right, and then nothing can with- 
stand it. It has had time, after more than a hun- 
'dred years of suffering experiment in the United 
States, to determine what is the better way for the 
general good, and into that it is turning deter- 
minedly and permanently. State after State has 



94 The Moderate Drinker 

decided upon its course; more will follow; and 
that means, eventually, the Nation. The outlook 
is brightening for relief from the greatest burden 
the world is bearing. 

But, meanwhile, the bald facts stand out as to 
the average moderate drinker. How miserable is 
the summary of his qualities, and their effect upon 
himself and others! What pervading influence in 
society, or in business circles, is more sinister than 
his, the influence of one who leads the inexperi- 
enced to ruin, and who shortens his own life, though 
his taking-off may be long-deferred? A careless 
criminal and a suicide — what other term would do? 



CHAPTER X. 



ALCOHOL AND BUSINESS. 

After all, what we chiefly struggle for in life is 
personal prosperity, to secure a competence, if not 
wealth, to have no fear of advancing age and to 
possess the means for aiding others on occasion. 
This great object can be attained by the individual 
only under certain conditions, which conditions 
cannot possibly be enjoyed by the user of strong 
drink. Drinking and monetary success do not go 
together. Efficiency in the conduct of the everyday 
business affairs of life is either killed or, at the 
least, crippled by indulgence in liquor to any ex- 
tent or in any form. 

From the very beginning of active life the bane- 
ful influence of any use of alcohol is shown. Thou- 
sands of youths fall victims so early in the struggle 
that they have no careers at all. They are the prey 
of the liquor sellers before they have a chance to 
enter the world of activity. The saloonkeeper must 
have new recruits to take the place of those who 
have gone to fill jails, asylums and graves. In 
parts of some cities as, notably, Chicago and Kan- 
sas City, over fifty per cent of the patrons are 
minors. This class of saloons are usually situated 

95 



96 Alcohol and Business 

outside of the business districts but their youthful 
patrons are none the less possible future business 
men. Of these unfortunate boys a great proportion 
never appear as of importance among men. They 
are ruined before manhood comes. 

But, as after a plague some survive, so there go 
into the world at maturity hundreds of thousands 
of young men as yet unscathed and filled with the 
highest ambitions and aspirations. They are full 
of confidence, a confidence which sometimes leads 
to ruin. Some of them learn to drink immediately; 
and, that temptation once yielded to on the part of 
a young man, his hand is in the mouth of the tiger. 
His chances in life have been cut down fifty per 
cent at once, however moderate may be his drink- 
ing for a season. He may perform his work well 
enough but he is handicapped from the time he 
drinks at all. He finally drinks too much — just 
once — and his status has dropped again. Or, it may 
be only that his employer has caught the taint of 
liquor upon his breath. The result is just the same.- 
Finally, he has to go. Times have changed and the 
employee who drinks is a man no longer wanted. 

The fact is that employers everywhere in all 
branches of production or performance have 
learned that, even regardless of differences in nat- 
ural capacity, it is unprofitable to rely upon the 
services of a tippler. Properties are managed with 
the idea of earning profits; and, in the long run, 



Alcohol and Business 97 

the total abstainer is found to be the best agent to 
this end. The railroad companies particularly, 
have learned this and demand that their employees 
must be sober, not only when on duty but when off 
duty, as well. The man who drinks when unen- 
gaged may some time make a slip while at work 
which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars 
and possibly result in the loss of human life. 

And, as with the railroads, so it is elsewhere. 
The manufacturer wants no one in his employ who 
is not always sober and safe in the handling of ma- 
chinery, and this means that not only must one be 
sober while at work but must have no trembling 
hands. So it goes everywhere, throughout every 
branch of labor or of trade. The drinking man is 
at a disadvantage, even though he be not a drunk- 
ard, and this applies to the young drinking man 
particularly. The time comes to him when, ex- 
pelled from one position after another, he loses his 
grip and, finally, his courage and goes to join those 
who have gone before into the alcoholic cemetery. 

But always there are survivors, and there are 
drinking men, tens and hundreds of thousands of 
them, in business. Not less than the employee is 
the business man hampered and endangered. 

It costs to be a steady drinker, even though a 
moderate one. Take figures as they have been com- 
puted. At a low estimate the moderate drinker 
spends fifty cents a day on liquor, though a dollar 






98 Alcohol and Business 

would be nearer the mark. Take seventy-five cents 
for the average. What then has his liquor cost him 
between the ages of twenty and fifty-three years? 
The sum is a little over $9,000. But this estimate 
does not include the thousands of "treats" nor the 
occasional semi-debauches into which moderate 
drinkers almost without exception, are sometimes 
led, nor does it take into account the interest on the 
money nor what might have come from an invest- 
ment made with the sum if saved and invested say 
at the end of each ten years. Nor is loss of time 
considered. Drinking is expensive! 

The mere money loss, however, is but a trifle com- 
pared with what his habit costs the drinking man in 
other ways. He is bound and endangered. He is 
but a feeble and unpleasant imitation of what he 
might have been. He is mentally handicapped. 
Who— and the drinker himself if honest will be 
first to acknowledge it — does not recognize as un- 
exaggerated this description of what he has brought 
upon himself? 

A business man, to succeed, must be quick of per- 
ception, capable not only of recognizing opportuni- 
ties and all their possibilities but swift to seize upon 
them and develop them to the utmost in every bear- 
ing. This sharp perception and readiness of action 
the drinking man invariably lacks. His mental 
operations are necessarily sluggish, for his brain 
has become in a measure clogged even though, 



Alcohol and Business 99 

given time, its functions may be exercised with a 
moderate degree of effectiveness. 

He lacks initiative. That implies not only what 
might be called the business inventive faculty but 
the possession of the spirit of business adventure, 
with the courage and spirit to carry out any sort 
of a campaign to a resolute issue. It is the posses- 
sion of this quality which ordinarily makes the rich 
man, the one who has risen above his fellows in 
making some new departure and reaping its ad- 
vantages. Initiative is the last thing to look for in 
a drinker. He is content to drift from day to day 
because he is never "on edge" nor likely to be im- 
patient over existing conditions and resolved to 
change them. It is true that, occasionally, he may 
adopt some novel course, in a sort of desperation, 
but the chances are that it will be a plunge with 
no defined campaign behind it and that the conse- 
quences will be disastrous. 

Despite the fact that the drinking man rarely 
makes a new departure or accomplishes a business 
feat of importance, he is always intending to do so. 
He is a dreamer of dreams. He imagines a certain 
great thing that he will do and riots in the thought 
of what the profits will be and resolves that he will 
take action — tomorrow. Tomorrow never be- 
comes today. Postponement is one of the things 
he cannot avoid. This is one of the most notable 
traits, commented upon a thousand times, of the 



100 Alcohol and Business 

man who drinks. Immediate action seems impos- 
sible to him. Physicians have tried to account for 
it, but failed save in the conclusion that the effect 
of liquor upon the brain, while inducing visions of 
what might be done, has at the same time taken 
away an impelling force. Whatever the definite 
cause, from either the physical or psychological 
point of view, the fact remains the same. 

He is vacillating, even when in action. His 
mind is rarely fixed to such an extent that he is sat- 
isfied. What seems good to him today is other- 
wise tomorrow. If he has associates, they come in 
time, to doubt his judgment, and so, to act for 
themselves. He becomes more or less a cipher in 
the organization, whatever it may be, of which he 
should be a forceful part. 

He becomes untrustworthy, and consequently, 
distrusted. He exaggerates or misleads in his con- 
versation. It is a fact that any man drunk, is a liar. 
An unconscious one, it is true — but one whose 
statements, made while he is intoxicated, are not to 
be accepted as the truth. He may be, ordinarily, 
among the most honest of men, one who would 
scorn any departure from exactitude of expression, 
but, drunken, he is another creature. Such condi- 
tion awaits the moderate drinker, for it is a recog- 
nized fact that the action of liquor upon the sys- 
tem is cumulative. As to the commercial effect 
upon a man of being considered one whose state- 



Alcohol and Business 101 

ments may be misleading, it is needless to com- 
ment. A reputation for absolute honesty, in all 
respects is one of the first essentials for success in 
business. 

His personal appearance is against him. This 
is inevitable. There is no possible way in which 
the drinking man may conceal the existence of his 
habit. Alcohol in the system reveals itself with 
deadly certainty. The face tells the story. A man 
may be shaven and clean; his dress may be neat 
and accurate; he may be, aside from the face, the 
ideal man in appearance, but his features reveal 
his secret. True, this may not be the case when 
only the unsophisticated are encountered, but the 
man of the world is never deceived. He knows 
the coloring of the eye, the droop of the jowl, the 
uncertainty of the corners of the mouth. They are 
signs as plain to him as are the pittings of small- 
pox. It is with men of the world that the busi- 
ness men must deal. All sorts of occasions may 
arise when the revelation of his habit may work 
him injury. His immediate business associates are, 
of course, familiar with his failing, but it may oc- 
cur that a deal of some sort is to be made with 
strangers, men who know faces, and what they see 
in his may prevent some good connection. The 
face of the drinking man is a constant warning to 
those who might do business with him. It says 



102 Alcohol and Business 

to them, "Go in with me and you take your 
chances." 

His mental poise is lost. It is a physical law 
that the moderate drinker has times of depression, 
times when he becomes morose, sullen and melan- 
choly, a disagreeable associate, but these occasions 
may be, in some cases, comparatively infrequent. 
It is no less a law, however, that in no instance 
has the character of the drinking man failed of a 
change which is likely to be permanent and which 
is at all times manifest. He is not always cheer- 
ful and hopefully inclined. He lacks that some- 
thing which will give him the kind of popularity 
which is worth something, the popularity which 
involves respect with friendship, and popularity 
such as this is one of the greatest of business assets. 
A man of moods and fancies is not the equal in 
everyday affairs of one of steady qualities and 
whole-heartedness as well. 

Nothing need be said here of the chance, great 
and always existent, that the moderate drinker may 
become an habitual drunkard. That is another 
matter. This is a consideration purely of one of the 
material aspects of the liquor question and of the 
effect drinking must have upon the prospects of an 
ordinary youth just entering the world of affairs, 
or the prosperity of the older man already engaged 
and with the usual business relations. Who will 
assert that what has been said is other than a sim- 



Alcohol and Business 103 

pie exhibition of what are the effects of the drink- 
ing habit in each instance or that, in detail, the pre- 
sentation is not true to life? The general effect in 
the industrial and commercial world, the loss to the 
individual, to say nothing of the loss to the com- 
munity, may be but assumed — it can scarcely be 
over-estimated. With no liquor and no drinking, 
hosts would be more prosperous and the business 
world become a new and greater entity. 



CHAPTER XL 

LIQUOR AND POLITICS. 

The most sinister fact in connection with the 
liquor traffic and its vicious effects is its connection 
everywhere with politics. It is part of politics, it 
influences politics, it even makes politics. Its ef- 
fects are not confined to city or county or state, but 
are even national. The liquor interest, from policy 
and for self-preservation, forces this condition, as 
a matter of course. So far as it can, it dictates who 
shall make the laws and who shall, supposedly, en- 
force them. Its hand is upon the throttle, the 
shadow of its looming form over every election. 
In a thousand instances it holds the balance of 
power and its dominance is easy. It places its 
creatures in city councils and in legislatures. It 
often requires subservience from the managers of 
either of the leading parties. Its affairs are inex- 
tricably mingled with those of politicians and its 
behests must be obeyed in an emergency. It is a 
tyrant, selfish, domineering, seeking only its own 
profit and debauching the whole system of free 
government. 

The methods of the liquor interest are simple. 
The saloon is made political headquarters in any 
locality. There assemble the local bosses and the 

104 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE BALANCE OF POWER 
The political boss, servant of the liquor interest, votes his degraded 
legions always in favor of those who will obey the behests of his employer. 

Page 107 



Liquor and Politics 105 

heelers; there are influenced all drinking voters; 
there are arranged the plans for carrying precinct 
or ward, or district, by fair means or foul. In the 
saloon's windows appear the portraits of favored 
candidates. 

The saloonkeeper is, not infrequently, the boss 
himself, directing affairs from a back room, con- 
sulting with lieutenants and hangers-on, who do 
his political bidding without question and who fail 
at their peril to do it thoroughly. The work is 
well done. Every vote in the bailiwick is account- 
ed for; every inebriate, every criminal, every weak- 
ling is rounded up and instructed imperatively as 
to what he shall do on election day. He is even 
told at what hour he shall cast his vote and what 
shall be his duties before and afterward. All hu- 
man material of the lower class is gathered into a 
voting-machine and its formation has begun so 
early that it is formidable because of its size. The 
respectable citizen may have neglected to register 
and thus may lose his right of franchise. Not so 
the tramp or tough or any one of the element which 
the community could spare. He has registered 
because he was warned betimes from a source 
whose authority he dare not question. So there is 
formed a voting force as numerous, compact and 
manageable as it is disreputable. 

And, when election day comes, there is no neg- 
ligence, Each vote of the vicious regiment is ac- 



106 Liquor and Politics 

counted for and is cast for those upon the ticket 
who are to be the representatives and instruments 
of the interests the saloonkeeper represents. His 
creatures will not disobey him nor can he disobey 
the power behind him. He, himself, is but a cog 
in the great liquor machine. 

Only the political work of the ordinary saloon- 
keeper has been here described. He is a small 
operator compared with some of his vocation who 
do things on a larger scale. In almost every city 
of importance is a district where is the home, usu- 
ally but casual, of the worst class in existence, the 
thieves and highwaymen, the violators of law gen- 
erally and the thousands upon thousands of waifs 
and derelicts, the hosts of tramps, many of whom 
drift southward at the beginning of winter, return- 
ing with the spring. All this vast army of disrep- 
utables are but recruits to the forces of the liquor 
interest at election time. Abundant drink alone 
would command their services, but, should that be 
not sufficient, they can be bought cheaply. Here is 
where the saloonkeeper of the more desperate and 
keener order of generalship takes command. His 
low-browed adjutants are everywhere. The name 
of every one of the vagrant horde is secured, or, if 
he have no name, he is given one. Any name will 
do. Miserably cheap lodging-houses are filled to 
suffocation and upon each herded "floater" a dili- 
gent watch is kept, that he may not be missing 



Liquor and Politics 107 

when the time has come to use him. Such regis- 
tration as may be done in time is accomplished, 
regardless of all fact or the sanctity of oaths. Many 
herded late cannot register, but they can, at least, 
vote, under the names of missing ones. Election 
day comes and the work is completed with a ven- 
geance. The thugs and wanderers are voted by 
platoons, casting their ballots as directed, neither 
knowing nor caring what these ballots indicate. 
They know only, in a general way, that they are 
solid for liquor. 

Such is the work of the saloonkeeper. Usually 
he has no alternative. The very fixtures in his sa- 
loon are owned by some brewery or wholesale 
liquor house. His license was secured for him by 
the same master. He is only one of a host of agents 
for the collection of voting forces the influence of 
which, combined, must be something tremendous. 
He but adds his spoils to the general plunder. 

As the head and commander of a voting army 
thus raised and constituted, the Liquor Interest has 
something to say, and in no peaceful or cringing 
mood, to the political managers of any party. 
What is neither more nor less than an ultimatum is 
presented: 

"Here I am," it says. "Here I am, at the head 
of a force in politics such, in powerful coherence, 
as does not exist elsewhere, such as has never existed 
anywhere before. It is great in numbers, but it is 



108 Liquor and Politics 

not in numbers alone that its strength lies. It is 
perfectly organized; it is under absolute control; 
it will march in any direction and strike as direct- 
ed. It is altogether different from your scattered, 
unmanageable, often rebellious forces, be they Re- 
publican or Democratic. It can always be relied 
upon. It is neither more nor less than an enormous 
body representing political brute strength and rec- 
ognizing, unquestioningly, orders from but a sin- 
gle source. As an ally, too much cannot be paid 
for its services; as an enemy it is to be dreaded. 

"What I want and what I have to offer is simply 
this : You stand arrayed against the forces of the 
other of the two so-called great parties. You are 
more or less evenly matched. The issue of a con- 
flict is doubtful. I am camped here aside. 

"I want, for the liquor interest, a majority of 
members of city councils ; I want a sufficient num- 
ber of state senators and representatives to make it 
a certainty that liquor need have no fear of hostile 
legislation; I want enough members of congress to 
afford the same assurance with regard to the na- 
tional body; I even want, when the time comes, 
certain delegates to the national convention, for the 
inclinations of a President are no light matter. 

"Give me these things and I will join my forces 
with yours and of your victory there is not a doubt. 
Outnumbered and outfought — for my army can be 
relied upon in battle — the enemy can have no 



Liquor and Politics 109 

chance. Reject my offer, and I join forces with 
him, insuring your defeat instead of his. What 
are you going to say about it? Understand, I'm 
not begging an alliance — I am not compelled to — 
I am only making a proposition. Consider the 
matter seriously, and swiftly. You know I never 
jest." 

What is the political manager to do? He knows 
from past experience the seriousness of the political 
situation. He remembers how many close elections 
have been decided by the vote of this unscrupulous 
power. He remembers how, even in Prohibition 
Maine, election after election has been decided 
by ballots cast after promises of lax enforcement 
of the law. With the thousand local contests so 
determined he is familiar. His conscience is not of 
the stinging sort, and he reasons that "what has 
been will be" in politics. What if the concessions 
made involve in their result a violation of the peo- 
ple's will and a bartering away of the people's 
rights? What if by the compact he, practically, 
makes his own party an ally in the continuation of 
a blight upon the country? He wants to win. He 
enters into the shameful agreement, and, after the 
election, the liquor interest is again intrenched and 
insolent. The sale of all intoxicants will go on un- 
retarded and there will continue the wide sacrifice 
of human interests, of human happiness and human 
life. So is the liquor interest combined with poli- 
tics, Without politics it could not live. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE TREATING HABIT'S SEDUCTION. 

Of all perilous and debauching customs, induced 
by a false conception and continued as a habit, there 
is none existent in other countries to compare in 
evil results with the American practice of "treat- 
ing." It does not prevail abroad as it does in the 
United States and Canada. It is not generally 
prevalent even among the wine-drinking and im- 
pulsive French. Why it should have originated 
and so extended itself among a practical.and intelli- 
gent people is beyond all explanation. To feel 
bound to buy for another man his tea or coffee at 
any chance meeting would appear to be a suffi- 
ciently absurd idea, but to buy instead, and as a 
matter of course, a drink, which will only injure 
him, is a performance more grotesque. The origin 
of the custom can have but one explanation. It be- 
gan, somehow, at times when men were drinking 
together and had forgotten for the moment the 
value of money, or that all were not equally its 
possessors. Foolish emulation followed, and, even- 
tually, the vicious usage became a fixed one in a 
country where but for its exceptional prosperity, 
such nondescript and unreasoning waste, and worse 

no 



The Treating Habit's Seduction 111 

than that, might well have been thought impossible. 
Begotten in drunkenness, the oppressive custom has 
proved its father's child. It is one of the greatest 
elements in making millions the victims of alco- 
holism. 

Through the practice of treating it is the rule 
that the youth takes his initial drink. He is haled 
into a saloon by some unreasoning friend, and there 
makes his first acquaintance with the taste of liquor, 
and has, it may be, his first view of surroundings 
with which, in time, he will become too well ac- 
quainted, and to his hurt. His friend may have no 
bad intention. It may be that he himself has never 
been in a saloon more than once before. He has 
learned that to "treat" a friend met casually is the 
proper thing to do, and he is acting on the impres- 
sive knowledge he has acquired. He is only "put- 
ting on airs" in a boyish way. He cares for the 
friend he has invited to drink, and would be the 
last one in the world to harm him. Yet he has done 
him an injury which may be irreparable. He has 
committed a crime. The young man treated natu- 
rally reflects. He would not be less accomplished, 
less up to date in his ways or less generous than his 
associates. He, later, meets a companion as inno- 
cent as was he, and, in magnificent imitation, does 
as did his own friend of the day before. Another 
youth is added to the ranks of the entrapped. Or 
the second of the trio may meet again the first. It 



112 The Treating Habit's Seduction 

is imperative that the compliment be returned. 
They enter the saloon, "treating" is accomplished, 
and, on this occasion, repeated. Two drinks are 
taken, one immediately after the other, for the first 
time in the lives of these youthful would-be men of 
the world. It is the beginning of an end which 
may be prophesied. 

In McClure's Monthly, a publication of high 
standing and purpose, appeared, some time ago, an 
article, the truthful details of which are vouched 
'for by the editor, and in which the conscience-smit- 
ten writer gave details of the subsequent lives of a 
group of young men whom he had in his unthinking 
and good-natured adolescence induced to drink, by 
"treating." Referring to his prosperous youth, he 
says: 

"At this time, I influenced twenty young men, my 
contemporary associates, in beginning saloon drink-' 
ing. The saloons were open, and all we had to do 
was to go in and be welcomed." 

In later years, this youth, now, because of drink, 
a failure as a man, inquired into the fate of those 
he had unwittingly led astray. He says : 

"In 1893, one of the friends of my minor drink- 
ing days, one of the twenty young men influenced by 
my drinking habits to join me in drinking, cut his 
throat at a saloon bar. He was a successful business 
man of fine character and ability. The retail liquor 
trade suffered a financial loss estimated at a mini- 



The Treating Habit's Seduction 113 

mum of forty dollars a month by the suicide of alco- 
holic liquor slave Billy. Billy began drinking at 
sixteen years of age, and lasted thirteen years in 
saloons. Immediately after Billy's death I was ex- 
cessively annoyed by a persistent hallucination of 
Billy's presence with me when drinking at saloon 
bars. Once Billy appeared to have 'jumped' my 
body and got a drink for himself. I was standing at 
a saloon bar talking with a friend, but conscious of 
Billy's presence. Suddenly the 'I and I' part of me 
was several feet from my body, attached to it by a 
tenuous cord at the solar plexus. Then I was jerked 
back into my body, and my friend was asking me, 
'Don't you think so, Jack?' I replied, 'I don't 
know.' He insisted, 'You do. Say, come out of 
it! There was an expression on your face just now, 
when you took your drink, like Billy's. Poor old 
Billy ! I bet he would like a good drink about now.' 
I then noticed that I had drunk my liquor without 
knowing I had done so. Perhaps being in the same 
saloon where Billy had killed himself aided in this 
hallucination. It gradually faded, and in a year 
entirely disappeared. 

"In 1895, another one of the twenty young men 
influenced by my drinking habits to join me in 
drinking, was burned to death in a hotel fire. The 
night clerk, knowing that I was a personal friend 
of the dead man, told me whisperingly that Con had 
been carried to his room from the bar-room at mid- 



114 The Treating Habit's Seduction 

night, a couple of hours before the fire. Con began 
drinking at sixteen years of age, and lasted fifteen 
years in saloons. 

"Another of the group killed himself by mor- 
phine poisoning in a saloon wine-room. Dan was 
the most successful business man of the old bunch — 
successful in every way but one. The retail liquor 
trade suffered a financial loss estimated at a mini- 
mum of $100 a month by the suicide of alcoholic 
liquor slave Dan. Dan began drinking at the age 
of eighteen years of age, and lasted seventeen years 
in saloons. 

"In 1905, another one of the twenty killed him- 
self by falling and fracturing his skull while very 
drunk in a saloon. He began drinking at seventeen 
years of age, and lasted twenty-seven years. 

"In 1909 the twenty young men of whom I have 
spoken were distributed as follows : 

Married under twenty-five years of age; pa- 
ternity and family duties first checked, then 
stopped alcoholic liquor drinking 9 

Suicides in saloons while drinking (bachelors) . . 3 

Burned to death while incapacitated by drink 
(bachelor) 1 

Accidentally fell while in saloon very drunk and 
killed by fall (bachelor) 1 

Supposed accident by leaky gas-jet; no reason for 
suicide other than tired of drinking (bachelor) 1 



The Treating Habit's Seduction 115 

Died from pneumonia at twenty-nine years of 

age (bachelor) i 

Died from tuberculosis of lungs at twenty-seven 

years of age (bachelor) i 

Bartender in Chicago West Side saloon (mar- 
ried) i 

Street peddler in Chicago, South Side (bache- 
lor) i 

Not heard from since 1904; then a tramp 1 

"My statistics go to show that matrimony under 
the age of twenty-five years tends to check and stop 
incipient inebriety. 

"Ten of the twenty young men did not marry, 
presumably because their saloon slavery occupied 
their time and means to such an extent that there 
was no time or inclination for courtship and mar- 
riage. I have personal knowledge that four of the 
ten bachelors were refused marriage by intelligent 
young women on account of the boys' drinking 
habits." 

In the article quoted from the full names are 
given of the young men whose fate is there de- 
scribed. There can be no doubt of the truth of the 
account of what was the result of "treating" by a 
single person, a mere youth. The story is appalling. 
But it is not the youth who do most of the "treat- 
ing," though life is naturally joyous to them and 
they are inexperienced and impressionable. It is 
in every-day life, among business men and grown 



116 The Treating Habit's Seduction 

men everywhere, that "treating" makes its wrecks. 
The experience of the adult does not differ greatly 
from that of the younger person and his peril may 
even lie, to an extent, in his worth and popularity. 
He is asked to drink on all sides, and if he yield, 
in a spirit of good nature or aversion to being con- 
sidered uncompanionable, it is inevitable that he 
must invite others as they have invited him. He 
must be, not alone among those who suffer, but 
among those who seduce. The vicious, debauching 
custom has become so universal that it is difficult 
for any man of connection to avoid its adoption. 
There is but one safeguard against it, and that is 
never to drink at all, in any place or under any cir- 
cumstances. Such an attitude is generally more or 
less regarded, even by those who cannot understand, 
or, understanding, cannot but respect. As a matter 
of fact, a man does not, in any company, diminish 
his popularity by being a total abstainer from strong 
drink. Even among the notorious political bosses 
whose strongholds are saloons are some wise enough 
to refrain from touching liquor in any form. As 
to the ordinary business man, the use of liquor but 
impairs his credit. 

In the making of drunkards, the treating habit 
is the greatest factor, but, aside from that overtop- 
ping evil, it results too often in something even 
worse, from the point of view of human sympathy 
and helpfulness. It drags down to the depths again, 
the man with conscience and self-respect and force 



The Treating Habit's Seduction 117 

of character enough to, at least, attempt reform. 
He may have succeeded in his effort. The alcohol 
may be entirely out of his system. He may be re- 
stored to health and business success and general 
affection and regard and, apparently, be in no 
danger of a relapse into his former enslaved condi- 
tion. He is as confident himself as are his family 
and friends, though all experience tells that there 
still must lurk within him the suppressed demand, 
which, once aroused again, will be irresistible. To 
arouse it is the province of those who "treat." The 
freed slave of alcoholism is assailed by those who 
have known him only as one of themselves. He 
tells them that he is "on the water-wagon"; that 
it's all right, but that he cannot join them, and they 
only laugh at him. Just one cannot hurt him, any- 
way. The liquor is there; its fumes have reached 
his brain, and, at last, he yields. The "just one" is 
sufficient. The old fierce clamor for intoxicants 
comes with a rush again, and the man is lost. 

The illogical, expensive, inexcusable, and more 
than vicious "treating" habit makes most of the 
drunkards in the United States, and ruins the 
chances of tens of thousands who might be saved. 
It is not an evidence of generosity; it is the practice 
of a careless habit. It is not a proof of friendship ; 
it is the infliction of an injury. It is not a test of 
worthiness; it is treachery. It is not a manifesta- 
tion of regard for another's welfare; it is an effort 
at his undoing. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LIQUOR'S BYWAYS. 

_ All means at the command of Uncle Sam for the 
distribution of alcoholic drinks are promptly util- 
ized, and none more persistently than the mail. 
The Post-Office Department. discriminates against 
the advertisements of lotteries and will not allow 
the transportation or delivery of whatever litera- 
ture may be deemed inimical to public morality, 
but it carries cheerfully to their destination the ad- 
vertisements of strong drink in any form. They go 
as safely and are delivered as carefully in prohibi- 
tion States and communities as elsewhere, and con- 
vey to their recipients full information as to how 
the law may be evaded. There is practically no 
limit to what the obliging Post-Office Department 
will do in the interest of the dealers in intoxicants, 
The United States mails are employed in defeat- 
ing the will of the people, and in extending the 
liquor traffic. 

Especially are the mails utilized by those who 
sell liquor under the guise of medicine, a particu- 
larly dangerous class of those profiting by the sale 
of intoxicants, since they reach the households and 
the farms and, in thousands of cases, induce a taste 

118 



Liquor s Byways 119 

for alcohol where it did not exist before. One of 
the weaknesses of the rural districts is the resort to 
patent medicines, the alluring advertisements of 
which assert that they will cure any or all of a long 
list of diseases, whose symptoms are described so 
that they might apply to a person in absolute health. 
Thrust constantly before the eyes in country news- 
papers and widely scattered in almanacs and cir- 
culars, these reiterated advertisements have their 
baneful effect. The so-called "medicine" is pur- 
chased and, after being taken for a time, induces a 
taste for itself which results in further use, until its 
regular consumption has become almost a physical 
necessity. The partaker has become the slave of a 
stimulant, which is what the manufacturer in- 
tended. 

The "tonics" may be counted as among the most 
dangerous of the patent medicines so widely sold. 
It is doubtful if one in a hundred among them is 
productive of any good effect, while the evil ac- 
complished by the others cannot be estimated. A 
careful analysis of these patent medicines, made 
some time ago by the Massachusetts Board of 
Health, revealed some striking facts. One of the 
most extensively advertised and consumed among 
the "tonics," one so well known that its name is 
familiar to all who read, was found to contain 44.3 
per cent of alcohol ! That is, a drink of the "tonic" 
was equal to a drink of whisky. Whisky ordinarily 



120 Liquor's Byways 

contains from 48 to 50 per cent of alcohol, but fre- 
quently is so watered by dealers that it has less than 
that amount. The foolish consumer of that "tonic" 
might just as well, so far as its effect goes, buy his 
drink in a saloon. He is, aside from his conscious- 
ness of the fact, no different from any other drink- 
ing man, yielding to the same inclination, and sub- 
mitting himself to the same peril. The "tonic" evil 
has an added viciousness, too, in that it so often ex- 
tends to women, and that even children sometimes, 
in all ignorance, are made to suffer from it. - 

There is no limit to the recommendations given 
these "tonics" in their advertisements. They are 
sometimes so brazenly false as to announce the nos- 
trum as a cure for drunkenness. One -is described 
as "purely vegetable, recommended for inebriates." 
This contained no less than 41.6 per cent of alcohol. 
Another is asserted to be "entirely free from alco- 
hol." This yielded 25.6 per cent. Another is 
called "bitters, contains no alcohol." It was found 
to have 29.5 per cent. A "non-intoxicating stimu- 
lant, whisky without its sting," had 28.2 per cent. 
"Liquid beef tonic, recommended for treatment of 
alcoholic habit," contained 26.5 per cent. What is 
perhaps the most widely advertised "vegetable com- 
pound," for women, was found to hold 20.61 per 
cent of alcohol. Could conscienceless deception 
for the sake of gain go further? 

Two causes have combined to bring out glaringly 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE 
The saloonkeeper and the patent medicine manufacturer are in the 
same business, though reaching their victims by different methods. The 
sale of alcohol profits them alike. 



Liquor's Byways 



121 



the fact that the manufacturers of proprietary medi- 
cines rely upon the alcohol in their concoctions to 
induce and extend their sale. These two forces 
were the Pure-Food Law and the present great 
anti-liquor movement. The Pure-Food Law de- 
mands that bottles containing patent medicines must 
have a statement of the proportion of alcohol in 
the contents. There was general opposition to this 
feature among the manufacturers, but they had no 
recourse. The ruling was inflexible; and the line 
"25 per cent alcohol," or whatever the percentage 
might chance to be, appeared upon each bottle. It 
appeared, but it was not obtrusive. It was, in fact, 
in exceedingly small type, and noticeable only upon 
close examination. Then, all at once came a start- 
ling change. The line indicating the amount of 
alcohol suddenly grew in size and distinctness, as 
if it wanted above all things to be read. What 
caused the astonishing difference? The law was 
the same. There had been no addition of a stricter 
provision. To quote the explanation of a popular 
magazine, "the change came, curiously enough, at 
the same time with the great wave of prohibition 
throughout the country. To the average mind there 
would seem to be no special connection here until 
this significant fact now comes out — that in nearly 
all the States that have by law recently gone 'dry,' 
the sales of 'patent medicines' having the largest 
quantity of alcohol in them have increased. In 



122 Liquor's Byways 

three 'dry' States, for example, the sales of one 
'patent medicine,' with '50 per cent alcohol' promi- 
nently printed on the bottle, have increased more 
than tenfold in six months. To use the words of 
one 'patent medicine' manufacturer, whose nostrum 
has a generous amount of alcohol in it, 'These States 
going "dry" are all right.' And then he laughed 
comfortably! But that laugh meant no good to 
the public." 

The limit of effrontery in advertising alcohol is 
probably reached in the exploitation of plain 
whiskey as a medicine, accompanied by the asser- 
tion that a special brand has in its composition cer- 
tain remedial substances ; yet such whiskey is widely 
advertised through the mails, though the fact is 
glaringly apparent that the charge should stand of 
using the mails with intent to defraud. In New 
York a druggist was arrested for selling a whiskey 
of this class, and set up the plea that it was a medi- 
cine, for the sale of which he did not need a license. 
The manufacturers of the whiskey put witnesses on 
the stand in support of this contention. The Ex- 
cise Department of the State took a different view 
of the case, and summoned Dr. Joseph de Guehuee, 
the chief chemist of the Health Department of the 
City of New York ; Dr. Charles A. Crampton, chief 
chemist of the Internal Revenue Bureau of the 
Treasury Department at Washington; and Dr. Ed- 
ward J. Wheeler, chemist of the New York De- 



Liquor's Byways 



123 



partment of Agriculture — all of whom testified that 
not a trace of medicine or remedy of any kind ap- 
peared in the malt whiskey analyzed by them; that 
it was nothing save whiskey, and Dr. Crampton 
further testified that it was a very poor quality of 
whiskey at that 

Yet the sale of the whiskey goes on, and the Gov- 
ernment does not consider even a charge of mis- 
branding, though there appear on the labels of the 
drink "Consumption Cured;" "Invaluable for 
Delicate Women and Sickly Children;" "Makes 
the Old Young;" "Keeps the Young Strong;" "To 

Prevent and Cure Disease, Nothing Equals ;" 

"Gives Power to the Brain;" "Builds up the Nerve 
Tissues;" "There are Thousands of Men and 
Women in the United States over a Hundred Years 
Old who have retained their Faculties, Vigor, and 

Usefulness by using Whiskey." All the year 

round the stuff is announced as an absolute cure of 
consumption. "Delicate women and sickly chil- 
dren" are told that it will make them strong, and 
old people are exhorted to take it and live, with the 
assertion that there are "thousands of men and 
women, more than a hundred years old, who are 
kept alive by it." Hard workers with brain or 
muscle are told that it "gives power to the brain, 
and builds up the nerve tissues." What better evi- 
dence of a violation of the law could be required? 
Daily and weekly newspapers go through the mail 



124 Liquor's Byways 

in thousands with its advertisements, and the Post- 
Office Department is carrying to the old and 
diseased wagon-loads of circulars and booklets con- 
taining the false and delusive statements given 
above. Was ever afforded a more striking example 
of Governmental apathy, or worse? The ruling of 
the Post-Office Department in this instance is quoted 
but to illustrate one of the ways, outside the issuance 
of tax receipts which are accounted licenses to man- 
ufacturers and sellers of intoxicants, in which the 
Government abets the traffic in strong drink. The 
evil consequences of a lottery advertisement as wide- 
ly distributed would be nothing as compared with 
those following this flagrant abuse of the mails. In 
lotteries foolish people merely lose their money. In 
the purchase of alleged medical whiskey, they lose 
their money, and debase themselves as well. The 
distinction made by the Post-Office Department is 
as indefensible in law as it is in morals. The mere 
charge of using the mails with intent to defraud, 
or that of misbranding alone, would appear to stand 
for conviction in such amazing instance as here 
quoted. 

What gives special harmfulness to the use of the 
mails by dealers in any form of alcohol is that it 
enables them to entice hundreds of thousands of 
people who could not otherwise be reached. The 
farmer and his wife and children would be im- 
mune from the unwholesome trade but for the mis- 



Liquor s Byways 125 

use of our postal facilities, and it is he who should 
be most active in demanding a reform. It is to 
the interest of the farmer, especially, that the plague 
be eliminated in this country. He has no possible 
interest in the liquor business. He is its natural 
enemy, for abundant reasons. Take definite figures. 
The latest value of all farm products in the United 
States for the year 1908 was $7,778,000,000, of 
which liquor bought less than seven-tenths of one 
per cent. That, in the sale of hops, barley, corn, 
and rye, to the manufacturers, is all that comes to 
the farmer. On the other hand, he must bear a 
large proportion of the cities' drink burden in the 
extra taxes he is compelled to pay. The closest esti- 
mates show that the costs of courts are swollen more 
than one-half by liquor; protection to life and 
property, one-quarter; charities, one-half; insane 
asylums, one-third; and penal institutions, one-half. 
These proportions have been certified by courts, 
superintendents, wardens, doctors in charge and 
other qualified officials. They are conservative. 
Some might very properly be increased. For the 
support of State institutions the farmer pays. From 
the nature of his property, he cannot be among the 
tax dodgers. It is not surprising that the State 
Grange of Pennsylvania has taken up this matter 
especially, and declared that the liquor traffic "im- 
poses on the entire people a taxation of which the 
farmer bears an inequitable share." Certainly one 



126 Liquor's Byways 

who already suffers from the drunkenness of those 
at a distance must object to the utilization of the 
mails in extending the evil to his own neighbor- 
hood and, possibly, his home. 

And, since the mails can be utilized for the ex- 
tension of the liquor traffic, and patent medicines, 
containing as much alcohol as do drinks taken over 
a bar, be sold as medicines with impunity, is it not 
time that either a new construction be put upon the 
law or that it be changed to meet the situation? 






CHAPTER XIV. 

LIQUOR AND THE PHARISEES. 

There is one development of the liquor question 
in which the weakness of human nature is shown 
in its meanest form. There are those, money-seek- 
ers but moral cowards, who, while professing an 
abhorrence of the evil of strong drink, abet its 
sale, for gain, and rank morally far below those who 
are engaged in the traffic openly. They are the 
enemy in ambush, the sneaks in crime. 

A druggist may attend church regularly and see 
to it that his children never miss the Sunday School. 
A druggist, established citizen, it is held, should al- 
ways be respectable; if he be devout so much the 
better. He particularly deplores the evils which 
result from the use of ardent spirits, as a good man 
should. Meanwhile he is doing very well. There 
is money in the trade and he is selling whiskey to 
any one who asks for it. It is one of the most pro- 
fitable features of his business. 

The drug store trade is almost the same in all 
great cities but that in Chicago may be quoted as a 
fair illustration of its quality. In Chicago are 
issued about 14,000 government licenses for the re- 
tail sale of liquor. The number of saloons is known 

127 



128 Liquor and the Pharisees 

and, relatively, the number of houses of prostitu- 
tion, these latter taking, it is estimated, about 3,000 
of the licenses. From as close figures as can be 
gleaned — for there is no definite information as to 
the occupation of each licensee — 1,100 of the fed- 
eral licenses go to drug stores. Think of it, over 
eleven hundred drug stores selling whiskey in one 
city, as if the saloons were not numerous enough 
for the business. As a pleasant hypocrite the drug- 
gist takes no unpretentious place. 

But it is not in the sale of liquor alone that the 
druggist distributes alcohol. In his stock are many 
liquids more or less likely to deterioration, if kept 
too long on hand. Some sort of preservative is re- 
quired and the druggist has it. He pours in alco- 
hol. It matters not that the medicine he sells may 
become merely strong drink in disguise, something 
liable to cultivate a dangerous taste in the innocent 
consumer or arouse anew the craving of the re- 
formed inebriate, the druggist has at least saved 
his stock. Should a druggist be, necessarily, his 
brother's keeper? He does not think so. Said a 
prominent druggist, when asked before a recent 
commission, how He preserved his goods : 

"Generally we put a little alcohol in them, and 
that preserves them." 

"When you put just enough alcohol into those 
drugs to preserve them, if anyone should ask you if 
there was alcohol in them, would you answer no?" 



Liquor and the Pharisees 129 

"Certainly I should, for this is customary, and 
has been for years with druggists, the alcohol being 
in such minute quantity amounts to nothing." 

Yet, this druggist must have known his last state- 
ment to be unjustified. The very odor of liquor 
will sometimes kindle into life again the passion of 
the reformed man. Here was hypocrisy enough, 
assuredly. 

It is doubtful, however, if the druggist occupies 
a higher rank among the hypocrites than does the 
department store proprietor. Here is the one whose 
specialty in one direction is to assist in ruining the 
lives of women of respectability and standing. No- 
where else, without compromising themselves, 
could shoppers gratify an unfortunate and increas- 
ing appetite. There is no stress upon them to order 
cocktails at a restaurant or otherwise betray them- 
selves while there exists a department store of the 
accommodating sort. There they can purchase either 
liquor disguised as medicine or, indeed, the liquor 
itself without any prevarication upon the bottle. 
Is not the department store a respectable place, is 
not its management complaisant and discreet, and, 
surely, a lady shopping may purchase what she 
wants ! A great agency in the ruin of homes is the 
department store, though its managers may sub- 
scribe heavily to worthy undertakings and sell ban- 
ners to temperance parades. The broadness of view 
of the department store proprietor is something 



130 Liquor and the Pharisees 

not to be excelled. As a hypocrite he dwarfs a 
thousand others. 

It has been said that in Chicago alone licenses 
for the sale of liquor have been issued to some 3,000 
houses of prostitution. Few, it may be, acquire 
their first taste for liquor in such places, for their 
patrons must be already more or less abandoned. 
Yet the debauchery must hasten the inevitable 
end. How is it that the places exist so easily? Who 
owns and rents the properties? There have been 
many revelations in this regard. Smug deacons and 
pious ladies, supporters of the churches and looked 
up to with humility by the ungodly, own the land 
and houses and rent them, knowing well the pur- 
poses to which they will be devoted.. Among all 
the pharisees who shall excel these? For it is they 
who preach extreme righteousness and inveigh 
most bitterly against all immorality and especially 
the soul-slaving evil of strong drink. Pecksniffian 
to the core, they exceed even the druggist and the 
department store proprietor in the falseness of their 
attitude and the cowardice of their action. The 
druggist and the department store proprietor have 
nothing to say; they are not, necessarily, professed 
reformers ; they are but supposedly respectable men 
who merely belie their respectability by disregard 
for the welfare of the community, in their money- 
getting, but the pious owners of houses of ill-fame 
belong to a class of hypocrites more concealing 



Liquor and the Pharisees 131 

and, at heart, the most degraded. Of course all 
places of the class alluded to are not owned by these 
loudly-professing Christians, but the tax lists tell 
the story. It is almost a matter of course that city 
land and city houses should be owned by fine old 
persons, venerable business men and respected 
widows. Late revelations, secured under the stimu- 
lus of the new movement for a more decent and 
healthier United States, are astonishing as showing 
into whose hands pass the rentals paid by those who 
conduct these houses of evil repute. 

Rather a striking, though not at all surprising, 
specimen among the hypocrites is the politician in 
cities where prohibition is in force, to such an ex- 
tent at least that no licenses are given to saloons, 
and thus a greater or less revenue is lost. He 
is solicitous as to the welfare of the schools and 
regrets deeply the fact that the city cannot afford 
such improvements as are demanded on all sides. 
Had not the revenues from the saloons been cut 
off everything would be different, and lovely. It 
is true that he overlooks the fact that there is less 
crime, that there are fewer arrests, that the ex- 
penses of courts and bridewell and jail have been 
cut down, that there is a gain all around in absolute 
money, to say nothing of the elevation of the city's 
moral tone, the conservation of its men and the sal- 
vation of its youth, but that is an oversight. He is 
merely sad as a patriotic citizen that a portion of 



132 Liquor and the Pharisees 

the revenue has been lost — that the loss is far more 
than offset is a matter of no consequence. He does 
not agree with Mr. Gladstone's reply to a deputa- 
tion of brewers, when they triumphantly asked him 
what he would do without the liquor revenue : 

"Give me a nation of sober Englishmen and I 
will take care of the revenue." Canon Stowell is 
quoted as saying: "If the government can control 
drunkenness it ought to do so. If it does not, it is 
afraid of its revenue. What will be lost will come 
back tenfold in consequence of honest industry." 

A noted Judge once said, in an address to the 
grand jury, "If it were not for this drinking you 
and I would have nothing to do." But the politi- 
cian is only a second-class hypocrite. * Few weep 
with him. He has the misfortune of not being 
taken seriously. 

There are others. Liquor breeds hypocrites all 
around. Hosts of men there are who profess an 
ardent desire to see the business of liquor selling 
done away with, yet in whose homes or offices 
may be found the bottle surreptitiously enjoyed. 
Slaves they are of the habit, quite as much as are 
those who indulge their cravings openly and, while 
they are not, perhaps, guilty of setting a bad ex- 
ample, save to their families, they are necessarily 
debasing themselves by a sacrifice of their own self- 
respect in the knowledge that they are cowards, 



Liquor and the Pharisees 133 

that they are doing that which they dare not con- 
fess to the world. And upon them, mentally and 
physically, strong drink has, necessarily, the same 
effect it has upon others. The deterioration is going 
on. They are the hypocrites who harm themselves 
and their own children. And this class, unfortu- 
nately, is not confined to men alone. To the woman 
who has acquired a taste for liquor secrecy in its 
gratification is even more a necessity, while open 
objurgation of the practice is quite as essential, to 
avert suspicion. 

Another class of hypocrite and a harmful one is 
the official who professes ignorance. The ordinance 
may demand the closing of drinking-places at cer- 
tain hours or, it may be, all the time, and he pro- 
fesses to attend to duty. Charged with its neglect 
he but replies that he is not aware of any violation 
of the law, that, were he assured of its infringe- 
ment, he would take immediate action. He de- 
clares that the law is weak and difficult of enforce- 
ment. He knows that he is lying. The law is not 
weak. Men who enforce the law too commonly are 
weak. It is the earnest and tireless prosecutor who 
vindicates the law. He knows, if not personally at 
least assuredly, what is going on, but remains inac- 
tive. He is worse than a mere hypocrite. He is 
one who is betraying a trust, but he exists every- 
where. 



134 Liquor and the Pharisees 

Such are some of the hypocrites whom liquor 
makes. Some hypocrites in life, foolish but harm- 
less, may, perhaps be forgiven, but not those whose 
course promotes extension of one of the greatest 
curses of mankind. Their deceptions amount to 
crimes. 



CHAPTER XV. 
WHAT OF THE CHURCHES? 

What are and what should be the relations be- 
tween the churches and the temperance movement 
which is bound to extend all over the civilized 
world because it is a world necessity? There can 
be but one answer to the question. The churches, 
of all denominations combined, form the greatest 
well defined influence in the world in directing or 
abating primal passions and inclinations. They 
include the family and the individual in all grades 
of society. Their organizations permeate the mass 
to the very centres of thinking humanity. Through 
them, with virile action, should come a more gen- 
eral wisdom and cleanliness and healthiness of liv- 
ing. Their united force, exerted definitely and 
sagaciously in any one direction, would be some- 
thing almost irresistible. Their recognized duty it 
should be to abolish the reign of alcohol. It is 
largely, to use an expression of the people, "up to" 
them, to the churches, pastors, and people. 

Why are churches existent? Why do men 
preach? Why do others assemble to hear them? 
We all know the answer. It is, first of all, because 
the people want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven 

135 



136 What of the Churches? 

when they die. Most of them are mightily uncer- 
tain as to their prospects beyond the grave. They 
tremble at the idea of either black dissolution or 
eternal punishment. Many join the church as af- 
fording a possible insurance against an awful evil, 
undefined. They prefer to be good, that they may 
live eternally and happily. The church is there- 
fore accepted as affording the machinery for being 
good, and to be good involves the necessity of doing 
good. Are the churches meeting that requisite? 
Are they improving the greatest opportunity that 
ever arose demandingly, one at their very doors, 
and thrust upon them daily? 

Of course, there are strenuous and continued 
church efforts at doing good. There are collec- 
tions and contributions and missionary boards and 
missionaries of both sexes, and the Bible is carried 
to Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral 
strands. In distant China, on the edges of the 
Persian desert, at the foot of the Himalayas or on 
the stretches of the Sahara, some few may be in- 
duced to change their creed. An occasional indi- 
vidual, already content with his Confucianism, his 
Bhuddism, or his Mohammedanism, may adopt 
another ritual — with what effect upon him, de- 
pends upon the point of view. But is this the best 
or the only way of doing good? 

Within the shadow of the churches, passed by 
thousands and hundreds of thousands on their way 



What of the Churches? 137 

to worship, are places where alcohol is distributed, 
and sinners manufactured. Not far away are the 
"red-light districts," where is taught the greater 
immorality, the way to the deeper degradation. 
And the worshipers go on to church, to sit in com- 
fortable Dews, listening to a comfortable sermon, 
and contributing at the proper time to some fund 
for improving the condition of the far away be- 
nighted. Across the way a youth is taking his first 
drink ; in some gilded place a young girl has fallen ; 
meanwhile some peaceful, happy, savage race, like 
the Samoans, whom the good God would, pos- 
sibly, have forgiven for their lack of a wire-fenced 
creed, may have become transformed into a disap- 
pearing race. But what of the need at home? 
What of the real field here for the accomplishment 
of good? Is it not quite as creditable to save a 
white human being as to save one of any other 
color? Would not the consciousness of having res- 
cued a single drunkard here be as sweet as that of 
having assisted in sending a more or less efficient 
exhorter to Zambesi? And what sort of books, 
may it be suggested, is the Recording Angel keep- 
ing? 

Yes, it is "up to" the churches. They must fight 
alcohol, not only because of the moral duty im- 
posed upon them, but because they themselves are 
threatened. Some churchmen realize this. Said 
a distinguished preacher, the Reverend Doctor 



138 What of the Churches? 

Gunsaulus, in a recent address, "Drink is the great 
evil before us today; and it must be met, or it will 
ruin the country." And he pointed out that one of 
the greatest curses of liquor is the increasing 
drunkenness among women and in the higher 
classes of society. The prevalence of the evil 
among business men is recognized, as a matter of 
course. Its extension to the household is a new 
menace. Women have always been the more re- 
ligious. They have been the greatest supporters of 
the churches of all denominations. Truly are the 
foundations of those churches threatened now. 

But it is not in self-defense that the churches 
should act. The resolve and persistent action 
should come from a higher impulse, from a desire 
to help the others, to uplift all suffering mankind. 
The desire and the work must be one of rescue. 
Thousands and hundreds of thousands are in dire 
need. The appeal should come as a call to arms to 
all real Christianity. 

Upon the preacher largely must rest the respon- 
sibility. He is the pilot. Upon him depends in a 
measure the course his following shall pursue; and 
what other man has such opportunity for the ac- 
complishment of good? Religious instinct bred 
through the ages, organization, custom, the need 
recognized even by the irreligious for a restraining 
force in the community outside the laws of men — 
all these combine to give the preacher his assured 



mamm 



What of the Churches? 139 

place as guide and mentor. A certain proportion 
of the multitude must assemble weekly, or oftener, 
to listen to what he has to say. How many a strug- 
gling inventor, how many a thinker with vast con- 
ceptions for the future, how many a man with 
something great to offer for the good of all hu- 
manity, would almost barter his soul for such a 
continued chance as custom gives the preacher! 
And what shall we say of one so equipped with a 
baton for the best marshaling, who makes no ring- 
ing call, but deals out only platitudes, and leads no 
force, while mercenaries are crushing the weak 
outside, and even invading his own camp? What 
shall we say of him who preaches only with con- 
sideration of the feelings of the best contributors 
to his sustenance? Is it not, to an extent, true — 
only to an extent, for this is no reckless and preju- 
diced arraignment — that moneyed interests in the 
churches, especially in the large cities, from soft- 
seated pews, dictate, more or less, the flavor of the 
words from the pleasant pulpit? Meanwhile men 
and women are drinking in a thousand places out- 
side, imperiling the lasting of their bodies and the 
worthiness of their souls. Yet the mission of the 
churches is to do good ; to care for the weak, men- 
tally and bodily, and save all souls which may be 
saved. To use again the common simile — which 
will yet become good English, and be accepted by 
the critics — the protection and rescue of a great 



140 What of the Churches? 

part of faltering humanity is "up to" the churches, 
and then preachers should lead the way. Priest 
and preacher have, more than others, in their 
hands the means to an end the most important for 
all mankind. As they utilize the means must they 
be judged. 

What are you going to do about it? Do some- 
thing, preachers and priests and congregations. 
Do something to abate and finally to abolish the 
evil which threatens more and more to take from 
civilized men the quality to fulfil the obligations 
they owe to the present world and to face the judg- 
ment of the next. 

The situation of the clergyman may be delicate. 
He is sometimes between the devil and the deep 
sea; but the deep sea, if he choose it, will take 
him in its arms and he will not drown. He is 
sometimes between the demand for salve and bal- 
sam from his immediate moneyed supporters, and 
the demand from God to do His work, and from his 
conscience, justifying his position that he do the 
good before him. What should the clergyman do 
and how should he do it? Sometimes to himself 
a sermon should be preached. 

Who supports the churches? Whose wife and 
children come with some degree of regularity, and 
who may come himself occasionally? The man 
of affairs, the man of force, the money-maker, who, 
in a more or less perfunctory way, advances the 



What of the Churches? 141 

funds for your more or less comfortable subsist- 
ence. He is sometimes working chiefly for what? 
To get or maintain his grasp on material posses- 
sions, for almost certainly less than the remnant of 
an hundred years. It is insignificant. What is 
part of an hundred years, compared with all eter- 
nity? You, more or less, as you feel the responsi- 
bility and are uplifted by the thought, are the 
spokesman and agent of the Great Being who reg- 
ulates our destinies. Is it wise to trifle with the In- 
finite out of consideration for the creature of the 
moment, who buys your beefsteak, when both your 
souls may be in jeopardy because of your inaction? 
Of course these are plain words, but are they not 
sometimes justified by your relations with some 
parishioner? Go to him, and put things as they 
are, for both your sakes. Tell him simply what 
the matter is, and what is just now the imperative 
call upon those who profess the religion taught by 
Christ. There is need for such action — present and 
crying need. Do you lack intelligence? Do you 
not perceive what is mankind's greatest present 
curse, its greatest sin and evil, and recognize the 
fact that battling with it is now the first and stern- 
est obligation of your place? The voice from the 
pulpit has stayed more than one sweep toward de- 
struction. Ignatius Loyola, John Wesley — creed 
matters not — could see and could rise to stem the 
drift backward to the depths of the dark ages. Yet 



142 What of the Churches? 

the threatened evil then was but a trifling illness 
compared with the plague which is already exist- 
ent here, and the demand upon the Christianity 
within them was but a fragment of such demand 
as there is upon the efforts of priest and preacher 
now. The church needs Wesleys and Loyolas. How 
it needs them ! 

The preacher need have no fears as to what will 
be his reception when he calls upon the strong and 
active man to join with him now in taking up the 
work which has become the first duty of the Chris- 
tian, to effect the end of the drinking of alcohol by 
any human being. None knows better than the 
keen business man to what extent the evil has 
spread; how it is spreading in ever-widening cir- 
cles; and how it is affecting all the relations of 
life. He has known, but, absorbed in his own 
plans and achievements, he has not consid- 
ered. He has not thought of his own defi- 
nite and unavoidable duty as a professed Christian, 
and as one who has regard for the welfare of his 
fellow men. He has been only inconsiderate of 
what devolves upon him if he care for anything 
after his funeral. The old law, that something 
cannot be got for nothing, applies to a blessed im- 
mortality. It is only by doing something that ad- 
mission may be had to the Kingdom of Heaven. 
And the preacher can show the way. As for the 
congregation generally, there is, because of the 



What of the Churches? 143 

great movement of which there is more than an 
inception, a fire already kindled which needs but 
fanning to develop into a vast and cleansing con- 
flagration. The congregations have felt the thing; 
and, once made to realize that there is other salva- 
tion-gaining work for the Christian than in sub- 
scribing for the shipment of missionaries abroad, 
there will come fervor in a course worth while and 
dominant. 

There is a practical way of doing good, and it 
must be followed if the universal temperance 
movement be of avail through any aid from the 
churches. Not by assailing local conditions, not 
by abusing city authorities for the non-enforcement 
of some law, not by railing at individuals, not by 
denunciation of the saloons and their owners — the 
saloon-keeper is but the creature of a condition — 
not by "red-hot" sermons and getting his name in 
the newspapers, can the preacher aid most in the 
great work in hand. Such preaching may do more 
harm than good. The professional reformer, 
representing some "league" or "union," peering, 
sneaking, nagging at officials, accepting greedily 
the report of his attendant spies and bringing petty 
suits, is no aid in a good cause. He but irritates 
the community, creates distrust, and, arousing their 
wrath and antagonism, drives those occupying a 
middle ground into the ranks of the adversary. 
This applies to the f roward so-called "reformer" in 



144 What of the Churches? 

the pulpit, as well as to others. A broader, saner, 
better course must be taken than that of loud as- 
sault. No mere local action or local law-making 
can aid permanently the temperance cause. The 
men who will preserve the world from its greatest 
menace must come to the work in the spirit of Him 
who taught the religion he professes. The Saviour 
brought no suits against the publicans. He but 
taught the truth, and showed the way. 

Not in Africa nor in Asia lies the first mission- 
ary field, but in America. Here is worshipped an 
idol more hideous than ever was carved. Here the 
Juggernaut claims a million victims to the Asian 
monster's one. Here is better work for Christian- 
ity than teaching a new theology to some half-wit- 
ted savage. Here is the field for missionaries ! 

And the missionaries in this cause will appear. 
They will come largely from the pastors and the 
membership of churches, because upon these the 
obligation, if they be earnest in their beliefs, must 
bear most strongly, and it is inevitable that they 
will realize it. To give a summary in the most 
commonplace of words, the men and women and 
youth of this country are drinking alcohol in some 
of its forms to such an extent as to threaten wide- 
spread degeneration, loss of body and soul. If 
there be a God and a future, if there be anything 
in the teachings of Christianity, those professing 
such religion honestly must rise unitedly and vig- 



What of the Churches? 145 

orously to assist in suppressing the great evil. The 
movement together must be practical. All true re- 
ligion is practical. Here is neither time nor place 
for sensationalism or fanaticism. Those who are 
to accomplish this vast thing for mankind must 
work, not for reform in precinct, ward, city, or 
State alone, but for a change which shall be na- 
tional, and with the National Government sustain- 
ing it. At the root of the upas-tree is its extermina- 
tion achieved. There can be no half-way measures. 
There must be no license. There must be no tax- 
ing. Whose great voice, though be he dead, ap- 
peals most strongly to the people of this country? 
What said Abraham Lincoln, speaking January 

23, i853? 

"Let every friend of temperance," he said, 

"frown upon all efforts at regulating cancer. Any 
license law, however stringent, must eventually in- 
crease the evil." 

Thousands and tens of thousands engaged in 
the liquor business, from distiller down to barkeep- 
er, may be forced to seek other avocations. Let 
none of the tolerant and worthy worry over that. 
It is but an ordinary incident in the law of trade 
and business, occurring frequently with other occu- 
pations. Lincoln, the wise and sympathetic, thought 
also of this, and what did he say, speaking of the 
golden age of temperance to come? 

"Even the dram-maker and the dram-seller," he. 



146 What of the Churches? 

said, "will have glided into other occupations so 
gradually as never to have felt the change, and will 
stand ready to join all others in the universal song 
of gladness." 

The church — any church — is national in this for- 
tunate country of freedom in religion. Working 
together, what a power can the churches be! What 
movement, so re-enforced and forced, could be re- 
sisted? 

There is a God, and there is a Heaven. To 
obey the one, and attain the other, what greater op- 
portunity exists in the world at the present time 
than in the turning of weak and tempted mankind 
from the use of all intoxicants? The churches can 
aid enormously in accomplishing the tremendous 
task, and so become a universal blessing, in truth, as 
now in theory, and their ministers and priests and 
members have more assured a share in the reward 
of the great Promise for the fulfilment of which all 
men and women are hoping and striving, in their 
degree. This is not preaching. This is fact. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SOCIAL PERIL. 

With all who become victims of the alcoholic 
habit, there must be a first drink; and, with the ex- 
ception of boys whose surroundings are such that 
drinking-places are familiar things, this drink is 
rarely taken in a saloon. As already reiterated, it 
comes from the sideboard decanter, or where, 
down-town, respectability takes its intoxicant. The 
example or the invitation of the elder leads the 
younger into the highway toward suffering and 
life's failure. It is all easy, bland, unconscious — 
and fatal. 

As for the first drink, taken from the decanter at 
home, who can reproach the youth of either sex 
who does yield to temptation, who is impelled, 
more than anything else, by curiosity or the mere 
instinct of imitation? The example is there, with- 
out the warning. To learn what liquor tastes like, 
and what its supposedly pleasant effects are, is the 
natural desire of the innocent and ignorant being, 
who, realizing no harm in the act, does what he 
or she has seen older people do as a matter of 
course. The first drink taken, it will inevitably be 
repeated, not, at first, because of a clamoring stom- 
ach, but because it is interesting. Visiting youth 

147 



148 The Social Peril 

join gleefully in the experiment. No two who 
taste the liquor are affected alike ; but, somehow, in 
some way, the decanter on the sideboard will have 
so added to the world's list of drunkards. The 
miserable crime of it lies at the doors of parents 
or guardians. They alone are responsible for the 
coming wreckage of life. Upon their heads is the 
blood of children. 

When a lustier age is reached, when the boy is 
nearing manhood, new social perils are at hand. 
He may, in the city, join a club of some impor- 
tance, very possibly his father's club. His father 
thinks it would be a good thing for him. There 
he will form acquaintances of value. He will 
meet men of affairs who may promote his future 
advancement in his business or profession. He will 
make good connections. The thing is worth while. 
He joins the club, and discovers it to be all that he 
expected. The elder men are affable and consid- 
erate, the younger ones companionable. He finds 
himself at ease and drops into club ways uncon- 
sciously. There is much smoking and some drink- 
ing—what would a modern club be without its 
bar? — and it is very pleasant to sit about a table 
among kindred spirits, and exchange ideas and 
stories. Others drink, and he, of course, is urged 
to do as they do. "Drink mellows," they explain. 
It adds to the appreciation of things. It makes 
p!o$er the companionship. He hesitates; for his, 



The Social Peril 149 

in many instances, is a temperance family, and he 
has been taught the danger from intoxicants, but 
the others are insistent, and he does not wish to ap- 
pear offish or an arbiter. He compromises, it may 
be, on something mild — a glass of claret, or some- 
thing of the sort. It matters not what it may be, 
his career in drinking has begun. The claret will 
soon be insufficient, and before him, as he smokes 
and talks complacently, will stand the whiskey and 
sodas of his associates. At outside luncheons or 
elsewhere the case will be the same. He is as fairly 
turned toward drunkenness and wretchedness as 
the other young man of another order who gets 
his drinks in a saloon. He is on the way. 

And what applies to the youth applies even more 
to the young non-drinking man who is just making 
his appearance in the world of business. The so- 
cial pitfalls are alike, though far more numerous. 
The identical dangers beset him if he be a member 
of a club, and outside the club they are innumer- 
able. He may be a devotee when he has time — 
and harmlessly enough — of the billiard table or 
the bowling alley; but, in the enjoyment of either 
healthful recreation, he must enter an atmosphere 
of drink. The cocktail or the whiskey for the 
others stands on the little table at the side. The 
fragrance is in his nostrils. Invitations to join in 
the drink are constant. He is flushed with physical 
effort, and is thirsty, and one is strong indeed, un- 



150 The Social Peril 

der such circumstances, who can always maintain 
a temperance attitude. There comes a time when 
he is no exception to the rule. 

Or it may be that the first time a clean young 
man takes a drink is at some banquet. What, ac- 
cording to the prevalent idea, would a banquet be 
without champagne, "as free as water"? It is sup- 
posed to make the speakers more witty and orig- 
inal, and their audiences more appreciative. It 
matters not that the champagne speech does not, 
somehow, impress in print as it did when uttered, 
nor that the applause of the seated guests arose from 
liquor-made enthusiasm ; the fact remains the same. 
To enter into the full spirit of a banquet, to be in 
all heartiness one of the cheering scores, it is held 
that a man should not reverse his glass. A little of 
such light drink, he reasons, will not harm him, 
taken only once. He yields to the feeling of good 
fellowship — and champagne has a taste attractive 
to thousands. The man will drink it again. At 
banquets, and because of champagne, men, not a 
few, have begun their career as drunkards. 

On all sides the hitherto abstinent young man 
is assailed. Time was, when, because of an idea 
well defined and justifiable, he would not enter a 
saloon under any circumstances. He felt that to be 
seen in such a place would not be to his credit in 
either the commercial or the social sense. This 
view, as business too often is conducted now-a-days, 



The Social Peril 151 

he is impelled roughly to modify. He is seized on 
the street by a man with whom he is connected in 
an important deal. Some crisis has occurred, or 
some new development with the import of which he 
must become at once acquainted. Is he hurried to 
the office of either of the two by the one who has 
caught his arm? Hardly. It would never occur 
to the man who has seized upon him to waste that 
amount of time. He is dragged into a saloon, seat- 
ed at a table, drinks are ordered, and the explana- 
tion begun before he fairly realizes what has hap- 
pened. He is swept away with the current of the 
moment, and that he, in his interest in or excite- 
ment over the business revelation, drinks what was 
set before him, is not at all surprising. He has be- 
gun the use of intoxicants. This is no forced illus- 
tration. It is but an incident occurring thousands 
of times a day in any one of the great cities. The 
fact exists. For some professions, those where con- 
stant presence in store or office is not imperative, 
the nearest saloon has been made an accepted con- 
venience for men interested together who meet 
upon the street, and either of whom has something 
of importance to impart. It saves time. The pos- 
sible grim result of doing business in such a place 
is not considered, but it is none the less existent. 
The practice is making an army of drunkards year- 
ly. It is perilous, vicious, inexcusable. 



152 The Social Peril 

But it is not the boys and young men alone who 
are in the midst of social dangers. Evils of the 
kind threaten young girls and women in society, 
as in the slums. Conditions are made for them de- 
liberately, and fortunate are those who resist 
temptation. The more pretentious and fashionable 
restaurants are among the snaring-places. A young 
girl, delicate and innocent, enters one of these, it 
may be with shopping companions of her own sex, 
or with a party after the theatre. There is the usual 
luncheon or supper, as the case may be, and there 
is the accustomed drinking of wine or cocktails. 
The shrinking girl is pressed to join in what she 
has always been taught to consider little less than a 
crime, but her almost childish protest is disregard- 
ed. It will not hurt her, she is told. She needn't 
drink anything strong. If she will not have wine 
or a Manhattan or other cocktail, she shall have 
one of the liqueurs, "pleasant and harmless things — 
not real drinking, you know" — and then she can be 
good-natured and cheerful with the rest. In her 
ignorance, she yields. The benedictine, the ver- 
muth, the anisette — or whatever it may be — is soft 
and sweet, and fragrant with the perfume of flow- 
ers and fruits. It does not seem so bad. She likes 
it. She will drink it again. She has begun the use 
of alcohol ; and the desire for it will grow upon 
her, to be gratified yet in other forms. She would 
never venture into a place not eminently respect- 
able. She would not drink even a liqueur except 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE EXAMPLE WITHOUT THE WARNING 
The father drinks from the decanter in sight of the innocent youth 
who, untaught and unwarned, is certain in time to imitate him and may 
descend to any depths. The father is committing a crime. Page 147 



The Social Peril 153 

with such companionship and surroundings. She 
has never heard of the back rooms of a myriad sa- 
loons which harbor other girls of another class, 
but she may be on her way there. The liqueur had 
its effect. 

Not in the restaurants alone lurks danger to 
young girls and women. The companion in a 
visit to a department store, is possibly learned in 
the complaisances and resources of that emporium, 
and has already utilized them. The young girl is 
initiated, encouraged and tempted by the reckless 
one. Society has its un-bonded warehouses, so to 
speak, and their privileges may be utilized by 
young or old. 

A tea party or a bridge party is given by the 
fashionable mistress of a fine residence. There are 
refreshments, of course. Do they include liqueurs, 
wines, or something stronger? Not rarely nowa- 
days ; and so the wealthy young are reared to look 
upon drinking as a matter of course, and an enjoy- 
able and harmless thing, and women who never 
have yielded are tempted by example. What 
would the fashionables think of a country club 
where the pure air was not tainted with the smell 
of alcohol, and where the exhaustion of golf or 
riding was unrelieved by the consumption of one's 
favorite intoxicant? 

Socially, alcohol is everywhere — insinuating, 
deadly. It is debauching those who should set ex- 
amples. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RUINED HOMES. 

The home is the keystone of the community. It 
is the binding, humanizing factor. It is what makes 
all the difference between savagery and civiliza- 
tion. It is the happiest or the unhappiest place on 
earth. Alcohol may make it the unhappiest, since 
it is the home's sworn enemy. 

It is difficult to portray the miserable relations 
and the inevitable disaster at the end when one of 
a family becomes a drunkard. Suppose it be the 
husband. Following marriage, for a season all that 
has been dreamed of wedded bliss is apparently 
being realized. Between the husband and wife are 
love and deep regard, and indulgence in mutual 
hopes and aspirations. The home is all it should 
be. Within it has attained that condition which 
the experience of all ages has shown to be the 
happiest and most peacefully exalted known to 
human beings. The mutual aims, the tenderness 
and thoughtfulness, the helpfulness and perfect un- 
derstanding and confidence are there; and these 
mean everything. What more excelling can be 
asked in this world than a life lived together of a 
man and woman fitly mated? 

But, all over the earth, is the baneful, unnecessary 

154 



The Ruined Homes 155 

temptation of intoxicants. The husband becomes, 
in one way or another, a victim of the habit, and, 
from the moment this subjection begins, he is un- 
consciously, another man. He is not the one the 
woman married. The action of his mind is differ- 
ent. He may preserve the outward forms of re- 
spectability ; he may, for a time, retain the instinct- 
ive courteousness and gentleness of demeanor that 
were his : but he is, nevertheless, another human be- 
ing. He may, at first, drink lightly but the alcohol 
is accumulating in his brain. His point of view is 
changing. His quick comprehension and sympathy 
are abating. His perceptions are dulled and 
blurred. And this is only the beginning. 

The greatest scientist, the greatest inventive gen- 
ius who ever lived, could not devise an instrument 
for measuring the tremulous waves of air or light 
or heat so delicate as is a woman's heart in the meas- 
urement of all that is between her and the man she 
loves, and no man ever existed who could conceal 
the change made in him by strong drink. The wife 
perceives it, though at first she may mistake the 
cause; but more knowledge will come swiftly. 
There are signs which cannot be mistaken, aside 
from those which are purely physical. The man 
is farther away. The intertwined being of the two 
is gone and alienation is beginning. 

It is all grotesque and pitiable. The demeanor 
of the husband, as the liquor habit grows upon him, 



156 The Ruined Homes 

will depend, necessarily, somewhat upon the char- 
acter of the wife. If she be mild of nature, merely 
gentle and loving and faithful, he possibly will 
maintain an appearance of masterfulness in his 
home, developing, more or less gradually, into 
brute instead of cur. He will become arrogant, 
swift and careless of speech, and overbearing. If 
she be a woman of spirit, it may be the other way. 
Imagine the creature who calls himself a man who 
comes home with cheap excuses on his lips for his 
lateness, or creeps into his own house at midnight 
as quietly as a sneak-thief, and seeks his bed in 
silence, to avoid reproach or chiding. What 
woman could be expected to retain either affection 
or regard for such as he? His degradation has been 
revealed in either case. He is no longer worthy of 
respect. His very breath has rendered him a thing 
offensive; for the breath of even the moderate 
drinker carries with it one of the most nauseating 
of all known odors and is sufficient to make the at- 
mosphere untenable about him for a greater dis- 
tance than any drinker realizes. What woman of 
refinement and keen sensibilities but must seek to 
keep as far away as possible from such a breath? 
What sort of a resting-place must the arms of its 
owner be ! 

And in how many other ways the deteriorating 
man reveals himself. Not only are his finer attrib- 
utes extinguished, his unselfishness and regard for 



The Ruined Homes 157 

the feelings of others gone, but he is now more and 
more a creature of moods and fancies. Placidity, 
equipoise, evenness of temper, are his no longer. 
He is silent and sullen, or confident and boastful in 
his vain conceptions. He is unreliable in thought. 
He is ridiculous. He is not a good companion. 
He has lost the point of view, and his presence is 
undesirable, sometimes maddening, to his wife, who 
has, more than others, to endure it. Yet to her this 
same presence was once what she most desired, and 
what she considered the most pleasant and essential 
thing in life. What. wonder that she seeks relief 
in the divorce court! 

The truth is told in the cold, dispassionate statis- 
tics issued by the United States Census Bureau. 
These figures show that intemperance, as either a 
direct or a contributing cause, was responsible for 
more than nineteen per cent — practically one-fifth 
— of all divorces granted in the United States dur- 
ing the twenty years between 1887 and 1906 inclu- 
sive. Since at the present rate at least every twelfth 
marriage ends in divorce, we get a proportion of 
one home in every sixty-one wrecked by drink. 
Moreover the census authorities admit that these 
figures represent only the most flagrant and pal- 
pable instances of the part which intemperance 
plays in divorce, and that a greater percentage than 
those given would actually be nearer the truth. The 



158 The Ruined Homes 

detailed figures, as set forth in the Census Bulletin, 
are as follows : 

"Drunkenness was the sole cause of divorce in 
36,516 cases, or three and nine-tenths per cent of 
the total number of divorces (1887 t0 1906). It 
was a cause, in combination with some other cause, 
in 17,765 cases, or one and nine-tenths per cent of 
the total number. Therefore it was a direct cause, 
either alone or in combination with other causes, 
in 54,281 cases, or five and seven-tenths per cent 
of the total. Of divorces granted to the wife, the 
percentage for drunkenness, either alone or in com- 
bination with other causes, was seven and nine- 
tenths per cent. Of those granted to the husband, 
the corresponding percentage was one and four- 
tenths per cent. 

"The attempt was made to ascertain also the num- 
ber of cases in which drunkenness or intemperance, 
although not a direct ground for the divorce, was 
an indirect or contributory cause. The number of 
such cases was returned as 130,287, representing 
thirteen and eight-tenths per cent of the total num- 
ber of divorces. Probably this number includes 
those cases in which the fact of intemperance was 
alleged in the bill of complaint or established by 
evidence, although not specified among the grounds 
for which the divorce was granted. 

"The remaining cases are those in which there 
was no reference to intemperance, or no evidence 



The Ruined Homes 159 

that intemperance existed as a contributory cause. 
In some of these cases the record was so meager 
that the absence of any mention of intemperance 
would justify no conclusions. But in the majority 
of instances it would create a strong presumption 
that intemperance did not exist, or was not a con- 
tributory cause." 

What a wreckage of families is this! 

Children may have come ; and, in such case, the 
father's degeneration has results which affect the 
whole community, since they may add to its present 
burdens or degrade its future citizens. The chil- 
dren, like the mother, realize the trouble, though 
they do not suffer from a broken heart and the pass- 
ing of bright dreams. 

They grow, as the vitiated soil sustains them, un- 
restrained and unassisted in their development, or 
subdued, stunted, and fearful — a distorted growth 
in either case. The love and trust and pleasant 
discipline and parental and youthful good fellow- 
ship which should prevail in a happily constituted 
family are lacking. The presence of the father, 
whether he be weak or overbearing, casts a damper 
upon everything. The children are either indiffer- 
ent to him, or afraid of him. He is an undesirable 
element, and the evenings and Sundays are marred 
occasions, for, be it understood, the drinker of the 
class described is not infrequently what is called a 
"home man." What more convenient place than 



160 The Ruined Homes 

home in which to brood or tyrannize or engage in 
wrangling, if his wife be of the militant sort? 
Even alcohol must have its refuge. 

It is a recognized first duty to society, of those 
who bring children into the world, that the off- 
spring be safeguarded to their maturity, and so 
trained and developed that they will become worthy 
citizens, a credit to themselves and the community. 
Ordinarily, it requires no sense of this obligation to 
affect the father's course. Instinct, natural affec- 
tion, pride and conscience combine, impelling him 
to a full regard for his children's welfare. He 
works to attain wealth, that they may be well reared 
and educated and fitted for successful and worthy 
lives. He plans and dreams for them. In his chil- 
dren, in whose veins runs his own blood, are his 
greatest comfort and ambition, and this is as it 
should be. It is the beautiful law of Nature, but 
the drinking man does not regard it. Nature he 
has defied; and, as a punishment, she has taken 
away his finest instincts. His life has become void 
of sane and loving conceptions. What drunkard is 
troubled over his children's future? They grow 
up as the weeds grow, to produce the seed of weeds. 
Such a field has their home been made. 

But, not always through the man, does alcohol 
destroy the home and make horribly farcical all 
the fond and fair ideals concerning it. It is a mis- 
erable truth that, sometimes, it is the wife who is 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE PITIFUL REASON 
The child, brave and hoping against hope, finds her stocking empty 
on Christmas morning. It could not be otherwise; her father is a drunkard. 



The Ruined Homes 161 

addicted to the drinking habit. Then, indeed, the 
situation becomes exceptional and intolerable. The 
man who returns from his occupation to a home in 
which he may find a wife under the influence of 
liquor is more to be pitied than he who goes to lean 
over the side of a coffin. He goes to look upon, pot 
merely the saddest, but the most repulsive sight the 
world has ever furnished, and to face mental con- 
tact with a creature whose abasement is beyond con- 
ception — for, through the action of some fantastic 
natural law, the drunken woman is more unspeak- 
able than the drunken man. If not too far ad- 
vanced in her excesses, the woman may, in public, 
have the craft to appear the very opposite of what 
she is, but, in private, the female drunkard is al- 
most invariably a demon, a creature of unwarranted 
suspicion and hatred, of unreason and recklessness, 
of foul imaginings and a fouler tongue. Descrip- 
tion cannot convey a full idea of this utter degrada- 
tion of woman, the greatest of God's creations ; but 
it exists, the sorriest of all facts. 

Of the home wherein there is a drunken wife or 
mother, it can but be said that it does not deserve 
the name. Incapacitated for real love and com- 
radeship and close and trustful conjugal relations, 
the woman is unfitted for a mate, and, with alcohol 
in every organ, she is a criminal if she transmit 
her tainted blood through tainted children. Even 



The Ruined Homes 161 

addicted to the drinking habit. Then, indeed, the 
situation becomes exceptional and intolerable. The 
man who returns from his occupation to a home in 
which he may find a wife under the influence of 
liquor is more to be pitied than he who goes to lean 
over the side of a coffin. He goes to look upon, not 
merely the saddest, but the most repulsive sight the 
world has ever furnished, and to face mental con- 
tact with a creature whose abasement is beyond con- 
ception — for, through the action of some fantastic 
natural law, the drunken woman is more unspeak- 
able than the drunken man. If not too far ad- 
vanced in her excesses, the woman may, in public, 
have the craft to appear the very opposite of what 
she is, but, in private, the female drunkard is al- 
most invariably a demon, a creature of unwarranted 
suspicion and hatred, of unreason and recklessness, 
of foul imaginings and a fouler tongue. Descrip- 
tion cannot convey a full idea of this utter degrada- 
tion of woman, the greatest of God's creations ; but 
it exists, the sorriest of all facts. 

Of the home wherein there is a drunken wife or 
mother, it can but be said that it does not deserve 
the name. Incapacitated for real love and com- 
radeship and close and trustful conjugal relations, 
the woman is unfitted for a mate, and, with alcohol 
in every organ, she is a criminal if she transmit 
her tainted blood through tainted children. Even 



162 The Ruined Homes 

more swiftly and effectively than the man can she 
tear down a home. 

With the greater household tragedies caused by 
indulgence in strong drink this chapter in the his- 
tory of its effects on human beings has nothing to 
do. The more startling crimes, the assaults and 
murders, and the prison and the scaffold, are not 
considered here. This is but the presentation of 
any one of many thousands of cases which are at- 
tracting no particular attention, though the suffer- 
ing involved may indeed be greater than that result- 
ing from more dramatic endings. From drink, in 
or out of the household, of the ostensibly respect- 
able, come the relations which terminate in the di- 
vorce courts, the shocking scandals, the struggles 
for the possession or the abandonment of children 
— in short, of all of what results, in one way or an- 
other, in the shattering of homes. The records of 
the courts tell the sad story in all its phases. There 
is no disputing the plain evidence. The homes of 
the nation are its strength and safeguard, and al- 
cohol is wrecking them by thousands. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE CURSE OF GREAT CITIES. 
In the great cities are alcohol's headquarters. 
For this there are many reasons. First comes the 
fact that the big cities are the reservoirs of Euro- 
pean laborers, who, with their immediate descend- 
ants, constitute some four-fifths of the physical 
workers. These furnish a vast and steadily extend- 
ing field for the sale of liquors. Beer is the cheap- 
est of the alcoholic drinks, and the one most con- 
sumed by the foreign population. Before the Civil 
War, whiskey, which then sold for from twenty- 
five to forty cents a gallon, was the popular drink. 
The foreigners come from countries where wages 
are low as compared with those in the United States, 
and here they can afford to drink more heavily. It 
is quoted as one of the commonest arguments of 
agitators in the old days, that the European laborer, 
coming from a country of high excise taxes and 
low wages, who must work seven days at home to 
get drunk one, need work but one day here to get 
drunk seven. Eventually, the tax following the 
Civil War raised the price of whiskey, and since 
then beer has become the foreign drunkard's staple. 
The more general drinking of beer in the United 
States has practically doubled the consumption of 

163 



164 The Curse of Great Cities 

alcohol. The capital invested in beer is over ten 
times that invested in the manufacture of whiskey 
and other distilled drinks. The great cities almost 
"swim in beer." In the country it is different. 

The commercial force interested in the liquor 
traffic is in the cities. The breweries and distilleries 
and hotels which profit by the drink traffic are 
chiefly there, and, in addition, there are business 
men who should have broader views, who imagine 
that a "wide open" town is the most prosperous. 
Of course those who profit directly by the sale or 
manufacture of liquor fight for freedom in their 
injurious trade. They have millions of dollars to 
be used in its defense, and they do not hesitate at 
expenditures. Money used directly is one force in 
making the city alcohol's headquarters. Making 
the city one great drinking place is counted good 
politics. Saloons are part of the machinery of the 
politician, and the backers of the saloons become 
his backers. In return, controlling the offices, he 
sees to it that officials are made pliant. Anti-liquor 
laws are not enforced. 

To summarize, such are the causes which place 
the chief burden of the gigantic evil on the cities. 
The voters of immediate foreign descent see in the 
temperance movement, which has been successful 
in some parts of the country, only a menace to the 
license which they call their "personal liberty," and 
resent all interference with their fantastic "rights" 



The Curse of Great Cities 165 

— that is, their right to do as they please — which 
they imagined would be theirs when they emigrated 
to the free country upon which they feed, and 
where they prosper, and where they enjoy privi- 
leges undreamed of by their forefathers. With 
them are the mistaken reasoners who believe the en- 
forcement of liquor laws impracticable, under any 
conditions, in a big city, even if desired by the 
decent majority of the people. They fear the loss 
resulting from the closing of thousands of saloons, 
and fear also the possible increased taxation result- 
ing from the loss of license fees. And, as for the 
politicians of the dominant parties, they want no 
interference with their machinery. Which of these 
forces regard or care for the present cost! 

The estimated liquor bill of New York City, as 
told elsewhere, is not far from $365,000,000 a year, 
or a million dollars a day. The cost of liquor to 
Chicago may be given more definitely. According 
to the latest figures, there are at present, in the year 
1909, 7,151 licensed saloons in Chicago, which pay 
into the city treasury $7,151,000 a year revenue 
for the privilege of existence. These places em- 
ploy, approximately, 21,000 men directly, and pos- 
sibly 15,000 more indirectly, counting the brewery- 
w r agon drivers and others connected with the liquor 
trade, say 36,000 in all. The annual rental value 
of the ground and buildings occupied by saloons 
would go well up into the millions. 



166 The Curse e>f Great Cities 

Were the sale of liquor absolutely prohibited in 
Chicago, and the law resolutely enforced, the sites 
occupied by saloons would not remain unoccupied, 
for they are always choice ones, and there would be 
but trifling loss in rentals. The men engaged in 
the traffic, and thrown out of work by the enforced 
law, would soon find other occupations, for they 
are not specialists. The only permanent losers 
would be the dealers in drink, who fatten on the 
community to its injury. 

As to the gain from the abolition of the liquor 
trade, say in a city like Chicago, it may be simply 
and readily estimated. The over seven thousand 
saloons must take in an average of at least ten thou- 
sand dollars a year each, to pay expenses and assure 
even a moderate profit. Including the large sale 
of bottled liquors, and shipments by mail and ex- 
press, the liquor bill of the city must amount to at 
least eighty million dollars a year. By closing the 
saloons, the people would be saved this monstrous 
sum, as against the petty $7,151,000 paid into the 
city treasury by the liquor sellers. The difference 
between $80,000,000 and $7,151,000 is $72,849,000! 

What would become of this $72,849,000, now 
expended only in the promotion of crime, disease, 
and poverty, were it saved for other purposes? 
Here is one estimate : 

For better and more comfortable clothing, boots 



The Curse of Great Cities 167 

and shoes, hats and caps, and other necessary wear- 
ing apparel, $10,000,000. 

For food and grocery necessities, of which tens 
of thousands of women and children now are de- 
prived through the drink slavery of heads of fami- 
lies, at least $10,000,000. 

For homes and furnishings, certainly $20,000,- 
000. 

For increased deposits in savings banks, educa- 
tion, amusements, and miscellaneous needs, not less 
than $30,000,000, — and this is probably an under- 
estimate. 

Added to all this must be the profit to legitimate 
business in the constant "boom" to the wholesale 
and retail trade, and the vast saving to the city and 
its tax-payers in the decrease of crime, and the ex- 
pense of courts, prisons, and poor-houses. Definite 
comparative figures in this last regard are fortu- 
nately available. Worcester, Massachusetts ; Birm- 
ingham, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee, are 
three among the largest prohibition cities, and their 
late records are of the utmost interest. 

Worcester, Mass., reports total arrests 52 per 
cent greater under license, which was the former 
practice, than under existing prohibition; arrests 
for drunkenness, 113 per cent greater under license, 
and for "first offenders" 129 per cent greater under 
license. 

In Birmingham, Ala., arrests have dropped in 



168 The Curse of Great Cities 

one year from 11,812 under license to 6,820 under 
prohibition. Railroad accidents dropped from 91 
under license to 16 under prohibition, and other 
accidents in proportion. Throughout Alabama the 
decrease in crime amounts to 75 per cent. 

In Memphis, Tenn., the decrease in arrests for 
crime for the first month under prohibition was 
from 164 under license to 61 under the new law. 

There is no great variation in the extent of the 
liquor evil in all the large cities in proportion to 
relative population. Chicago suffers in its degree 
about as does New York, Boston as Chicago, St. 
Louis as Boston, Philadelphia as St. Louis, and so 
on. It is fair to assume, too, that the enforcement 
of prohibitory laws would have the same effect in 
one city as in another. 

To return to Chicago as an object lesson, since 
the data in relation to its liquor traffic are given 
more at length, what other results than the savings 
of now wasted millions would follow the adoption 
of prohibition? The percentage of cases of drunk- 
enness before the municipal judges is not infre- 
quently over sixty per cent. With prohibition, 
what would be saved the city in the expense of ex- 
tra judiciary and the police department? The 
police themselves, in many cases, are opposed to 
prohibition. Said one of them, walking a beat in 
South Halsted Street, and speaking for many 
others, when asked for his opinion : 



The Curse of Great Cities 169 

"Why, if Chicago goes dry, it means that half the 
police force will have to be excused. Within a 
single hour I have picked seven men out of the 
gutter and sent them to the station. Of course I 
never indulge in drink, and I have been on the 
beat for sixteen years. As long as I have one vote 
in the community, they'll never go dry!" 

There spoke self-interest honestly, at least. 

With prohibition enforced, what would become 
of the gambling places and other forms of so- 
called "graft?" and how could the traffic continue 
in "white slaves," the young girls induced to drink 
and lured, under the influence of liquor, into shame 
and eventually, sold to houses of prostitution? 
What a factor would prohibition be in the cleaning 
up of the slums, in accelerating every movement 
for sanitary improvement, the prevention of disease, 
and the development of intelligent patriotism and 
civic pride. 

Who they are who oppose prohibition in the 
great cities has been told in this chapter, and told 
fairly. What would follow were prohibition to be 
enforced in the great cities has been shown from 
facts which are indisputable. Is not the matter one 
to be considered earnestly and acted upon most 
vigorously by the people of these cities? 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WHAT THE SALOON HOUSES. 

Varied are the doings of the saloon, and its sole 
utilization is not the mere manufacture of drunk- 
ards. It is the scene of tragedies of blood; it is the 
place of hidden plottings; it is the refuge of crim- 
inals; it is the home of the gambler; it is the hous- 
ing-place of the panderer and dealer in white 
slaves; it is the resort and retreat and fortress of 
those of every class who shame humanity. It is the 
home of all who should not be at large.. Its uses 
are as manifold and vicious as its allurements. 

It is late afternoon in the saloon. The barkeeper 
is leaning idly back, since, for the moment, he has 
nothing to do. Three men — hangers-on evidently, 
for they have beer before them, and are play- 
ing cards listlessly — are seated at one of the tables. 
A bulldog lying on the floor snaps his undershot 
jaw occasionally at a buzzing fly. There comes no 
sound from any of the back rooms. It is a chance 
dull hour at the dullest time of day. 

A young man enters. He is well-enough clad, 
but does not seem to be of the working or business 
class. There is an uncertainty, a furtiveness, and 
a weakness to his look. He is not a professional of 
any sort, but rather the vicious weakling. He ap- 

170 



What the Saloon Houses 171 

proaches the bar, and says a quiet word or two to 
the man there. The barkeeper listens with a show 
of interest, and examines carefully something the 
young man has brought with him. It is a diamond 
ring; and, after further low- voiced conversation, 
the visitor receives ten dollars for the jewel, which 
is worth, perhaps, five times that sum. It has been 
a profitable transaction for the barkeeper. He fre- 
quently makes money that way. How or where the 
young man obtained the ring is nothing to him. He 
is confident that it was stolen, but what of that? It 
will bring no less on that account when he disposes 
of it. He is as much a "fence," a receiver of stolen 
goods, as any statute-breaking pawnbroker. Op- 
portunities come to him, and he improves them. 
Morals find no home in the saloon. 

The big clock on the wall ticks of! an hour. It is 
nearly supper-time. The door at the rear, opening 
into the alley from the passage between the priyate 
rooms, swings quietly, and a child eight or ten years 
of age, a girl, comes through it timidly, and down 
the passage to the bar-room. She is bare-legged, 
and her scant dress is more than ragged. She is ill 
at ease, though she has made this journey scores of 
times. She is "rushing the growler." Silently she 
lifts to the counter the tin pail she is carrying, and 
places a ten-cent piece beside it. The barkeeper 
turns to the tap, fills the pail with beer until its 
foaming white crest is reflected in the huge mirror 



172 What the Saloon Houses 

behind him, and hands it to the ragged child. Not 
a word has been spoken, because the thing is a daily 
occurrence, and it is all a matter of course. The 
child will carry the filled pail to her shabby home 
near by, where her father, the workingman who has 
started down the hill, will begin to get drunk. 
Presently she will return for another pailful. She 
will be coming and going all the evening. 

It is dark now, and the lights are turned on in the 
saloon. Soon there will be "something doing." A 
couple of men enter, order drinks as they pass the 
bar, and take seats together as they find a table in a 
remote corner of the big room. Evidently they 
want to be out of ear-shot of all chance customers. 
Ferret-eyed, quick of movement, alert in every 
way, these two appear to be partners in what they 
are discussing quietly, but laughingly. They show 
each other different things, but in such a manner 
that no one else may see them. There are a watch 
or two, and purses and other things. These they 
restore to their pockets finally and then lean easily 
back to the enjoyment of their drinks and their 
cigars, though still continuing their low-voiced 
conversation. These are pick-pockets, and they are 
discussing the place, on the cars or in a throng or 
other advantageous ground, for the operations of 
the morrow. 

Another two come in, who, like the first, seat 
themselves at a table far from the bar and who 



What the Saloon Houses 173 

speak as quietly. Different in appearance are these 
later ones from those already here. They are 
heavier of aspect, more fixed of glance, and com- 
pare with the first as bulldogs do with terriers. 
They glance at the other two contemptuously. 
They know them well ; but they do not consort with 
pickpockets. Their low talk ends at last with action 
on the part of one and he draws from his inner vest- 
pocket a roll of bills which he hands to his low- 
browed companion and confederate. It is a 
division of the returns from valuables which have 
been disposed of, for these men are burglars. The 
saloon is their exchange, their clearing-house, as it 
is for other robbers. Where else should they go? 

It is getting into the night now, the tables are fill- 
ing, and men of all sorts are ranging themselves in 
succession at the bar. There are well-dressed 
working-men — for this is a fine saloon for its local- 
ity — and business and professional men, and, at the 
farthest end of the bar, are a group of youth who 
are drinking steadily, and talking noisily and fool- 
ishly. 

Four men come into the saloon, who give but a 
casual glance about, and proceed straight through 
to the private rooms, one of which they enter. 
Presently the bell of that room summons a waiter, 
who returns with his order and goes back carrying 
a tray on which are glasses and a bottle which he 
places on the table about which the men are seated, 



174 What the Saloon Houses 

all smoking. One of the men is big, huge-girthed, 
florid, and deep-voiced. He is evidently the su- 
perior, and the others but his henchmen. He 
begins a long talk, full of inquiries, advice, and 
orders, to which the others listen most respectfully. 
He is the precinct boss, and the matters under con- 
sideration may be the distribution and voting of 
certain bogus tickets, and, above all, an attack to be 
made late on election day on a certain polling 
place, where the opposition is strong and where the 
boxes are to be broken into, false votes substituted 
for honest ones, and everything changed and con- 
fused. It is a matter of importance, and the consul- 
tation is an earnest one. There have been many 
meetings of the sort in the same room. The saloon 
is the natural and convenient night office of the 
crooked or the thug politician. 

The big room is full now. There is a glare of 
light, and the thrumming of a piano at one side, 
loud, but almost lost in the clamor of voices, and 
something is "doing" generally. The group of 
youth at the end of the counter have disappeared, 
all save one, who has drunk too much and is sitting 
stupidly in a chair close to the passage leading 
through the private rooms. There appears at the 
entrance the face of a woman — bold, painted, leer- 
ing, and watchful. Her gaze falls on the half- 
sleeping boy and assumes a look of sudden interest. 
He is young— seventeen, it may be — and his whole 



What the Saloon Houses 175 

appearance shows that he is unaccustomed to such 
a scene as this, or to such an experience with drink. 
The woman slips over to him quietly, touches him 
on the shoulder and points toward the passage. She 
whispers to him and puts his fallen hat upon his 
head. Half dazed, wanting to get away, anywhere, 
away from this place, he follows her clumsily, led 
by the hand, and they go along the passage and out 
of the farthest door. He will awake in the morn- 
ing with the prostitute beside him. He will never 
be the boy again — clean and innocent. 

For an hour there has issued the sound of voices 
and laughter from one of the private rooms and 
waiters have come and gone bearing glasses of 
sweet wine and fragrant liqueurs and, finally, 
different cocktails. In this room are four persons 
drinking, two of them hesitatingly, but, as the alco- 
hol in the drinks affects them, more recklessly. 
They are young girls, heretofore good girls, who 
have foolishly formed a street acquaintance with 
the young men who accompany them. The girls 
have honest parents and homes of their own, and 
one of them has a light and decently paid occupa- 
tion; but they are frivolous and careless, because of 
their inexperience, and ignorance of a city's many 
pitfalls. The young men with them are lavishly 
dressed, mustached, bejeweled, bland, and apingly 
imitative of gentlemen, just the sort to impose upon 
young creatures fond of glitter and "style," such as 



176 What the Saloon Houses 

the two they have lured into this foul retreat. They 
are panderers, the capturers of "white slaves." 
They are beasts for whom the stake would not be 
punishment sufficient — destroyers of young girls. 

The two girls have been drinking more than they 
can bear. They are becoming dazed of thought 
and incoherent of expression. They can barely 
walk. It is time for the panderers to act. They 
raise their victims to their feet, assist them to the 
door and disappear with them into the outer dark- 
ness; a darkness, which — God help them! — has 
closed in upon the two lost ones for all their lives. 

No, the privileges and emoluments of the gov- 
ernment-licensed liquor vender are not confined to 
the profit in making drunkards. There are the by- 
products. Interesting, is it not, the simple, unex- 
aggerated account of only part of the "home and 
business life" of a saloon. 



CHAPTER XX. 

beer's champions. 

A desperate effort is being made by a portion of 
the drinking population to convey the idea that 
beer must not be classed among intoxicants the use 
of which should be suppressed. The effort is un- 
justified. The attitude taken is unsupported by the 
facts. Beer drinking is as dangerous as any other 
drinking. It makes a sot of its own kind. 

Delightful pictures are drawn of the beer garden 
in midsummer, of the cool breezes laughing 
through the shading trees and of the happy, peace- 
ful family at a table beneath — father, mother, and 
children — swallowing foaming glass after foaming 
glass, and listening entrancedly to the music of the 
band or engaging in joyous conversation. This is 
a picture in drawing which brewery attorneys most 
delight. It affects them even to happy tears and, 
when there comes from somewhere a hint that this 
elysium may be contracted, they are astounded and 
enraged. 

It is true that the breezes — if there be any — 
usually sweep through potted or imitation plants, 
or, stunted, sickly trees doing over-work in barren 
soil. It is true that the cheap music is there, though 
generally of a class to make life temporarily not 

177 



178 Beer's Champions 

worth living, to one with a discriminating ear. But 
there is no mistake about the abundant guzzling 
and the abundant conversation, sometimes in the 
language of the country. Nor is there any doubt 
that men, women and children, alike engage in the 
consumption of beer, an alcoholic drink. And of 
course it is not beer alone that is sold in the garden. 
Whiskey or wine or gin, or any other of the intoxi- 
cants, may be had on demand. The beer garden is 
but an out-door ordinary saloon. 

And yet a great class have the effrontery to de- 
clare that the gardens — or the halls where the gar- 
den's frequenters gather when the weather is too 
cold for outside indulgence — are a public need and 
a public benefit. What public? The beer garden or 
hall is an imported institution. The advocates of 
beer-drinking say that any interference with its 
practice is an infringement on personal liberty. 
Whose personal liberty? The immigrant terror- 
ists, the slayers of Garfield and McKinley, the an- 
archists from abroad who threw the bomb at the 
Haymarket, also claimed that any interference 
with them or their customs was an interference with 
their personal liberty. Had they not come, patron- 
izingly, to a free country to enjoy themselves in 
their own way! 

The beer advocates claim that it is not an intoxi- 
cant in the ordinary sense of the word ; that it is but 
a promoter of cheerfulness and good feeling, with- 



Beer's Champions 179 

out any subsequent ill effects ; that it is nourishing 
and of benefit to the system. A more preposter- 
ously false assumption and assertion was never 
thrust upon the judgment of an intelligent commu- 
nity. Beer is not harmless. It is a poison. Beer is 
not nourishing. It is a clog in the organs of the 
body. Beer is not a promoter of constant cheerful- 
ness. It is an inducer of suicide. Beer is not an 
aid to temperate living. It but leads to stronger 
drink. It is an evil thing, and nothing else. 

Beer not an intoxicant! Previous to the twelfth 
century, the art of distillation had not been learned; 
yet, previous to that century, some of the nations 
were fairly seeped in drink. In ancient China, in 
Egypt, in India, and, later, in Germany and Eng- 
land, governmental interference became necessary 
to check the tide of drunkenness, and the general 
degradation of the people. All from fermented 
liquors! And the effect of beer today is as it has 
been in the past. The records of our jails, our 
almshouses, and our reformatory institutions, 
show it. 

Seven glasses of lager beer contain, approxi- 
mately, as many particles of alcohol as one glass of 
brandy or whiskey, and the stomach will find these 
particles. What are seven glasses to a beer drinker! 
Some time ago, a patient was admitted to the 
Washingtonian Home, in Chicago. He had been 
connected with a brewery, where beer was as free as 



180 Beer's Champions 

water. He was strong and healthy-looking and it 
appeared impossible that his condition could really 
be dangerous. Every attention was paid him in the 
hospital, but he soon became delirious, and died. 
A post-mortem examination was held, and it was 
discovered that he had a stomach so ulcerated and 
eaten away that a painting was made of it, as an 
illustration of the extreme in what is abnormal and 
diseased. All from drinking beer. 

Another beer-drinker brought to the same insti- 
tution was a once prosperous builder, and a man of 
decent attributes, who had, however, lost most of 
his fortune and become brutal in his family rela- 
tions. He died as did the other; and, as in the first 
case, a post-mortem was held, and the kidneys 
found in such a condition of fatty degeneration that 
another painting was made, to afford another exhi- 
bition of the effect on the organs of alcohol in the 
form of beer. 

Fatty degeneration of the stomach is a disease 
with which the temperate are rarely afflicted. Its 
existence is not always indicated in the acts or ap- 
pearance of the individual. Men with such a con- 
dition of stomach may continue to transact business 
when the marvel is that they can live a day. 

"Sometimes," says Dr. Wilkins, "nearly the en- 
tire mucous membrane is covered nearly two inches 
thick with this adipose matter." 

A distinguished German physician asserts that 



Beers Champions 181 

he has conducted forty-one post-mortem examina- 
tions of this fatty degeneration, connected with his 
own practice alone. Beer and ale drinkers, more 
than any other class, suffer in this way. Says an- 
other distinguished medical authority: 

"I have not the least doubt that beer is the worst 
drink a man can possibly take into his system. 
Beer-drinking, beyond question, is one of the most 
prolific sources of insanity. Years ago I took pains 
to keep a record of the names of men who commit- 
ted suicide. When a year had expired, I looked 
over my list, and was surprised to find that seven- 
tenths of the names I had gathered represented men 
of beer-drinking nationalities. From that day to 
this, my attention has been directed to beer-drink- 
ing as a potent cause of insanity, and further inves- 
tigation has tended to confirm my opinion." 
The same authority gives this information: 
"Distilled liquors are evaporated into an iron 
chamber. Connected with this chamber is a leaden 
tube that coils around in a large tank. The evap- 
orated alcohol is forced from the chamber through 
this tube. Not so with beer. It is strained, and it 
is impossible to procure a strainer fine enough to 
prevent the minute particles of malt and other 
ingredients from passing through. The alcohol in 
the beer pickles these particles, and, when they pass 
into the stomach, they are very difficult to digest. 
The final result is that imperfect chyle is formed 



182 Beers Champions 

which cannot be transformed into pure arterial 
blood. After the impure blood passes into the cap- 
illaries, the functions of secretions are so changed 
and weakened that they deposit this fatty substance 
in the brain cells instead of healthy tissue. 

"The condition of the brain, after this fatty de- 
posit is made, creates a feeling of depression; and, 
as this feeling increases, the mind grows morbid, 
and the man becomes a victim of melancholy. Day 
after day this vitiated deposit increases, the cloud 
of melancholy settles deeper and darker, until the 
victim resorts to the excitement of intoxication, or 
rushes to suicide itself." 

So it appears that the corpulency of be^r-drink- 
ers is but a diseased condition, the precursor of 
insanity, or death. The examples are all about us. 
The beer-drinker is ever in peril. When attacked 
with congestion of the brain, the lungs, the liver, or 
the kidneys, medicine has slight effect on him. His 
tissues have become so affected that the disease may 
kill him if he does not kill himself. 

Beer's advocates declare it to contain nourish- 
ment. This is preposterous. Baron Liebig, the 
great authority of the greatest nation of beer- 
drinkers, has declared that proof exists, with 
mathematical certainty, that as much flour as can 
lie on the point of a table-knife is more nutritious 
than eight quarts of the best Bavarian beer. He 
further claims that in the drinking of eight quarts 



Beers Champions 183 

of such beer daily for one year the person only gets 
nutrition to the amount to equal that in a five- 
pound loaf of bread, to three pounds of flesh. He 
further claims that the same is true of beer made 
from sugar beets, and that no beer is a nutritive 
beverage; for, after fermentation, no albumen or 
flesh-forming principle remains in the liquor. 

The beer producers protest against this conclu- 
sion of their ultimate authority; but they protest 
in vain. The soundness of his conclusion is too 
evident. 

And what have the self-interested advocates of 
beer-drinking to say of the situation now in Ger- 
many, whence so many of them come? Von 
Moltke, their great general, declared that beer was 
a "far more dangerous enemy to Germany than all 
the armies of France." At the recent international 
congress held in London to oppose the growth of 
alcoholism, the German Chancellor sent the mes- 
sage that "The chief purpose of the time is to 
relieve economic conditions, of which the chief 
evil is the abuse of alcoholic liquors." The Ger- 
man Emperor has given special encouragement to 
plans to reduce the use of beer, and other liquors 
in his kingdom. He appointed a commission to in- 
vestigate the liquor traffic. When it reported that 
the drink bill of the nation had increased 
$125,000,000 in one year, he exclaimed, "Why, the 
Yankees could not stand that!" It is, in short, a 



184 Beers Champions 

fact that the Germans, in their own country, have 
realized their curse, and their peril. A great tem- 
perance movement has been inaugurated there, as 
here. The most advanced experiments as to the 
effect of alcoholic liquor on the body and mind 
have been conducted by German university pro- 
fessors. 

Dr. Herman Robert, a celebrated jurist of 
Hamburg, has this to say: "Three thousand, three 
hundred million marks is the tribute which en- 
slaved Germany must now pay yearly to the al- 
cohol capital. And what does the alcohol capital 
give us in return for this tribute? An increasing 
number of criminals, an army of sick and diseased, 
a depraved future generation, a horrible deformity 
of the population. One needs only to walk through 
Munich, which lies fast in the fetters of the brewer, 
and look at the bloated bodies and faces." 

It is beer which — as if it were not bad enough in 
itself — develops a taste for stronger liquor. In 
nine cases out of ten, the drunkard's first drink was 
beer. Later came whiskey and all the rest. Beer 
makes drunkards. 

It has been well said by a careful writer, that "if 
Divine Providence had set itself the task of grow- 
ing two saloons where one should grow, it could 
not have shown a fitter instrument than the Amer- 
ican brewing industry." The brewer must sell his 
beer. To accomplish this, the brewers have be- 



Beers Champions 185 

come the practical owners of thousands of saloons 
whose contents are mortgaged to them. Hundreds 
upon hundreds of them they own absolutely, with 
the land beneath them. They must sell their beer. 
In their saloons, be they of the so-called better class 
or "dives," whiskey and all other liquors are, of 
course, sold with the beer. The drinking man of 
any degree or class is cheerfully accommodated by 
the saloonkeeper of any nationality — by the way, 
the United States census shows that four out of five 
of the saloonkeepers of the country are of immedi- 
ate foreign birth, and that a large part of the re- 
maining fifth are unquestionably of the same stock, 
but that is aside. Above all, the beer must be sold. 
Over a billion dollars is invested in its production, 
and its distribution. The brewer's hand is heavy. 
He owns the dive, not one dive, but thousands ; not 
in one city, but throughout America. He wants to 
sell his beer, and the morality of the spigot-turner 
does not matter. He takes man after man, utterly 
irresponsible, and sets them up in business. The 
brewer furnishes the fixtures and the license and, 
it may be, pays the rent, while the barkeeper sells 
the beer. Saloons have multiplied, jammed against 
each other, and overlapped. So beer is distributed 
by corporations who own and sustain the places in 
which their product is sold along with all other in- 
toxicants, especially in places of the lower and 
dependent and baser sort. The breweries are the 



186 Beers Champions 

saloon-makers. The fact is notorious. Beer sells 
itself and whiskey. 

The facts are glaring. Yet the henchmen of the 
beer interest not only deny them, but are presump- 
tuous and defiant and even threatening in their 
assertions of what they will or will not do if the 
traffic be interfered with. This is most unwise on 
their part. The American people are negligent 
and patient up to a certain point, but beyond that 
they are different, decidedly. When any class pre- 
sumes to put imported national customs above the 
law of the State interpreted by the decisions of the 
Supreme Court, there will be a sharp division of 
sentiment — and something more. 

Beer is as great a curse as whiskey. It is as dan- 
gerous, and is doing as much harm to the 
individual and the country. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MORE GHASTLY FEATURES. 

Of all the evils of strong drink, the greatest is its 
effect upon the passions. In some, they become un- 
controllable; conscience dies; the murderous in- 
stinct takes the place of reason, and countless trage- 
dies are the result. The headlines of the news- 
papers tell the bloody story every day. Homicides 
in saloons and other disreputable resorts occur by 
thousands, but these do not compare in ghastliness 
with the slayings in homes or amid respectable sur- 
roundings. The person crazed by liquor becomes a 
demon. All distinctions between right and wrong 
are lost to him, and, to his distorted imagination, 
his dearest friends have become his enemies. Es- 
pecially if he be in that stage of inebriety when his 
shattered nerves demand more stimulant, which is 
refused, or if he has in such mood set out to avenge 
some fancied wrong is he transformed into a raging 
wild beast. His awful desire of the moment must 
be gratified, and human life is as nothing in the 
way. A more fearful illustration of the effect of 
alcohol on the human mind cannot be given than 
by quoting the story of one of the thousands of 
tragedies of drink, as has been done by Rev. W. A. 
Sunday in his sermons, giving but the simple facts: 

187 



188 The More Ghastly Features 

"Two years ago in the city of Chicago a young 
man of good parents, good character, one Sunday 
crossed the street and entered a saloon, open against 
the law. He found there boon companions. There 
was laughter, song and jest and much drinking. 
After awhile, drunk, insanely drunk, his money 
gone, he was kicked into the street. He found his 
way across to his mother's home. He importuned 
her for money to buy more drink. She refused him. 
He seized from the sideboard a revolver and ran 
out into the street and with the expressed determina- 
tion of entering the saloon and getting more drink, 
.money or no money. His mother followed him into 
the street and put her hand upon him in loving re- 
straint. He struck it from him in anger and then 
his sister came and added her entreaty in vain. And 
then a neighbor, whom he knew, trusted and re- 
spected, came and put his hand on him, but in an 
insanity of drunken rage he raised the revolver and 
shot his friend dead in his blood upon the street. 
There was a trial ; he was found guilty of murder. 
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and when 
the mother heard the verdict — a frail little bit of a 
woman — she threw up her hands and fell in a swoon. 
In three hours she was dead. 

"In the streets of Freeport, 111., a young man of 
good family became involved in a controversy with 
a lewd woman of the town. He went in a drunken 
frenzy to his father's home, armed himself with a 



The More Ghastly Features 189 

deadly weapon and set forth in the city in search of 
the woman with whom he had quarreled. The 
first person he met upon the public square was one 
of the most refined and cultured women of Free- 
port. She carried in her arms her babe, mother- 
hood and babyhood, upon the streets of Freeport 
in the day time where they had a right to be, but 
this young man in his drunken insanity mistook 
her for the woman he sought and shot her dead 
with her babe in her arms. He was tried and the 
Judge in sentencing him to life imprisonment, said : 
'You are the seventh man in two years to be sen- 
tenced for murder while intoxicated.' 

"In the town of Anderson a young man came 
home intoxicated, demanding money of his mother. 
She refused it. He seized from the wood box a 
hatchet and killed her and then robbed her. He 
fled. The officers of the law pursued him and 
brought him back. An indictment was read to him, 
charging him with the murder of the mother who 
had given him his birth, of her who had gone down 
into the valley of the shadow of death to give him 
life, of her who had looked down into his blue 
eyes and thanked God for his life. And he said, 
'I am guilty, I did it all.' He was sentenced to life 
imprisonment." 

A recent extraordinary case, where drunken mur- 
der was followed by strange retribution, not through 



190 The More Ghastly Features 

the law, is described in a late issue of The Scrap 
Book: 

"The old Jerry McAuley Mission, which stands 
almost under the Brooklyn Bridge, was an unusually 
popular place that night, for the air was filled with 
snow and the wind was blowing great guns through 
the squalid, crooked streets. Every bench in the 
meeting room was filled, and when the door opened 
and there drifted in with a blast of snow and wind 
a big, round-shouldered, gray-haired man in rags, 
he found standing room only. But that was better 
than walking the streets in the storm, and he stood 
patiently in the aisle, listening with a bewildered 
look to the service. He seemed to be impressed. 
Before long he shuffled awkwardly up to the front 
of the crowd and, joining the group of converts, an- 
nounced his wish to be saved. 

"There was something in the man's appearance 
that aroused a special interest in some of the mis- 
sion-workers, and when the meeting was over they 
stopped him and drew him into conversation. He 
was without even a penny, he told them, and had 
been nothing but a tramp. He had slept sometimes 
in Bowery lodging-houses, sometimes in hallways, 
and sometimes had walked the streets all night. 
Drink, he admitted, had long ago got the best of 
him. They gave him a bed in the mission, and he 
insisted on having a light by his bedside all night. 
'I can't sleep in the dark/ he said, 'It frightens me.' 



The More Ghastly Features 191 

"He was a regular attendant at the mission ser- 
vices after that, but sometimes he would become a 
backslider and go back to the drink. He must have 
it now and then, he said, for it was the only thing 
that would make him forget. Little by little his 
story came out. Years ago he had been living in a 
Western city with his wife. They had both been 
heavy drinkers. 

"One night, maddened by liquor, he had struck 
her with his heavy fist. She had fallen in a heap on 
the floor and he had dozed off into a drunken 
stupor. 

"Before the night was over he came to himself. 
The room was dark and he began to grope about 
for a light. And then he stumbled over the body 
of his wife. Half mad with terror, he kept on grop- 
ing for the light that he could not find. It seemed 
hours to him that he was searching there in the pitch 
dark for matches. At last he could stand it no 
longer and ran out into the street. He never dared 
to go back. 

"The next day he read in the papers of the tragedy 
the police had found in his home. He drifted from 
city to city. He could never stand the country 
places. They were too dark. It was only in the 
brightly lighted streets, where the crowds were, that 
he felt any peace of mind. Whenever he found 
himself in the dark he would grow cold with fear. 

"The influence of the mission had a wonderful 



192 The More Ghastly Features 

effect on him. The hunted look went out of his 
face ; he seemed ten years younger. The intervals 
between his backsliding to the saloons grew longer 
and longer. And then he disappeared. The mis- 
sioners wondered what had become of him. A few 
days later word came of his death at Bellevue Hos- 
pital. He had been arrested for drunkenness and 
had been locked up in a dark cell all night. All 
the night long he had clamored for a light, and in 
the morning he was a raving madman." 

And so the tale of murders, not of enemies, but 
of their friends, by the crazed victims of alcohol 
might be continued to make a library of volumes 
bigger than any ever printed. 

The accounts here given in illustration of one of 
alcohol's effects are but commonplace in their 
dreadful details. They differ little from the stories 
told constantly in the daily press. They are un- 
exaggerated, true in every word. Yet there are 
those who declare that liquor is not a murderer. 
Ask the saloon-keeper; ask the prosperous brewer 
or distiller. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

FACTS GRIMLY SHOWING. 

This work is a plain, earnest presentment of 
facts bearing on the greatest question of the time 
and it is sought to avoid here all appeals to emo- 
tionalism or any sentiment save those of right and 
reason, but it may not be out of place to introduce 
two incidents — one affecting the welfare of an in- 
nocent human being, the other giving the justified 
illustration used by a recent lecturer in a more 
than ordinarily effective address: 

A young mother, proud as a queen in anticipa- 
tion of her first child, one day reached a bend in 
the quiet street on which she was leisurely taking 
her accustomed walk. She was startled as she was 
suddenly confronted by a man, staggering, blear- 
eyed, bloated, his limbs shaking as with the palsy 
and his gait so uncertain that he required the entire 
width of the walk. She stepped aside. The 
drunken wretch staggered on, senseless of the dark 
shade of consequences he had cast on that happy 
prospective mother. 

A male child was born. It was discovered soon 
that something was wrong with the infant. Med- 
ical experts could not at first, account for it. As 
the child grew to boyhood and developed into later 

193 



194 Facts Grimly Showing 

youth it was found that he was affected for life, 
through the fright of the mother, by the stagger- 
ing gait, trembling limbs, facial contortions and 
most of the external appearance of the brutish 
victim of drink met on that fatal day. Though 
"neither this man nor his parents had sinned," yet 
the sensitive embryo had received through the nerve 
centres of the mother, made as by the impress of a 
stamp, a life-long, blighting deformity. Not he 
alone was affected, but, as the fear of his parents 
became conviction, the darkness of melancholy 
settled upon them also. Not they alone were 
touched. Though they lived secluded the presence 
of the afflicted one told the sad story to all the 
community around, leaving there also the impress 
of sadness. Who shall say that it is nobody's busi- 
ness if a man chooses to take a drink? 

An apostle of temperance was lecturing in a 
rural village of Missouri. A crowded house 
greeted him. He stepped upon the platform in 
apparent agitation, and addressed those assembled 
as follows: 

"Ladies and gentlemen — Before I begin my dis- 
course, I feel it incumbent upon me to apprise you 
of a most unfortunate occurrence transpiring in 
your prosperous town today, of which I believe you 
have not yet become aware. Then you will doubt- 
less deem it better that I omit my lecture, that 
you may determine upon some proper immediate 



Facts Grimly Showing 195 

action to avenge yourselves for the injury done this 
community. 

"A stranger arrived in your midst today, and 
called at the home of one of your principal citizens 
whom you delight to honor. A party of friends 
and neighbors were assembled there. He was from 
a distant State and introduced himself as a necro- 
mancer, wizard, magician, or something of that 
sort. He desired to exhibit his wonderful powers 
and the influence he could exert over all who would 
permit him to operate upon them, positively assur- 
ing them no injury could come of it. In truth, it 
would benefit them. He selected as a subject one 
of your noblest youths, who happened to be present. 
Talking volubly all the while and fixing his eyes 
steadily upon him, he urged him to submit to the 
experiment. After a little jocularity and banter- 
ing on the part of those present, the youth went for- 
ward as a subject, the magician not for an instant 
removing his eyes from the young man. After a 
few facetious compliments the magician slowly 
commenced making mystic motions with his hand, 
interspersed with passes over the forehead. The 
young man, to appearance, soon became drowsy, 
though, for a time, he appeared to be making an 
effort to throw off the influence. It was of no 
avail. He lapsed into unconsciousness. More 
passes, and the work of transformation was begun. 
His fine, thick, glossy hair, crowning his head in 



196 Facts Grimly Showing 

waves, lost its color, became straight, coarse and 
thin. His full, broad brow gradually receded. 
The lower face projected. From a splendid form, 
his limbs shrank and he became bent at the knees. 
From being erect and full in figure, his chest be- 
came hollow. He stooped. His eyes, previously 
beaming with expressiveness, lost their lustre ; the 
intelligence that had shone in them was fled, their 
brilliance gone. They were vacant, save for an ex- 
pressionless stare. His mouth opened. Saliva came 
from it and dropped upon his clothing. There he 
was, this fine specimen of youth, in the presence 
of them all suddenly transformed by this magician 
into a helpless, shrunken, senseless, 4 ro °li n g> 
driveling idiot. 

" 'Bring him back! bring him back!' cried his 
mother, no longer able to endure the sight. 'Bring 
him backP 

"Alas! the magician could not bring him back! 
No power could. No power ever can. Thus he 
will remain until claimed by death. 

"Fellow-citizens! what will you do with the 
miscreant who wrought this ruin to that noble 
youth?" 

The speaker was so earnest, so sincere, the pic- 
ture he drew was so vivid, that the indignation of 
the audience was wrought to the highest degree of 
intensity. A score of brawny men simultaneously 
sprang to their feet, shouting "Where is he?" ready 



Facts Grimly Showing 197 

in their anger to tear him to pieces. When the ex- 
citement had somewhat subsided, the orator con- 
tinued — 

"He can easily be found. He is in yonder saloon. 
A consignment of whiskey arrived there today from 
a neighboring State. Your honored citizen or- 
dered some sent to his home 'for family use.' Drink 
is that magician! Wreak your vengeance upon 
him. He deserves it. Unless you do, the manliest 
and brightest of your sons, in the future as in the 
past, will be overcome by this magician's terrible 
power — the power that transforms your sons into 
driveling idiots." 

So were aroused these men. The speaker had 
not exaggerated nor over-stated. Yet, but for such 
striking presentation of the case, they would have 
been indifferent, perhaps became indifferent again. 
Drink continues its ravages only because all do not 
appreciate their fearful extent and character. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE POWER OF WOMAN. 

There is one gleam of light in the dark story of 
the slavery of so large a portion of humanity to 
the habit of strong drink, and this is because of 
woman's influence. It is true that she is herself 
sometimes a victim, and that in such a case she be- 
comes even more repulsive and debased than man, 
having more to sacrifice; the crushed flower is 
ruined more totally than a thing of coarser fibre; 
but she is in such case a sad exception to the happy 
rule. Mother, sister, sweetheart, or wife, she is, 
all over the world, the deadly foe of alcohol; the 
guardian, as far as may be, of the man in peril or 
already nearly lost. Not only does woman effect 
ten thousand rescues ; but, when she fails, how pa- 
tiently she endures, still struggling for the salva- 
tion of those she loves, and hoping for the best. 
But how she suffers ! She it is who is the most to 
be pitied victim of the national license system, that 
blot upon the nation's record, an exhibition of cal- 
lousness and needless greed without a parallel. To 
her dearest ones the license is too often but a death 
warrant. Permission has been given to publish 
here a letter, a real letter, written by a broken 

198 



The Power of Woman 199 

mother, whose four sons died from drunkenness. 
Here is the letter, given in its entirety: 

"It is becoming more and more common to hear 
the charge made against the American woman, that 
she has lost or crushed out the God-given desire to 
become a wife and mother. 

"Various reasons are assigned for this; but I 
have seen no mention of what I believe to be the 
principal cause. 

"I believe it is because our nation has refused 
to protect the home that the American woman 
refuses to become a wife and mother. 

"She has wept, prayed, and petitioned our na- 
tional and state governments to throw around the 
homes of the country some protection from the 
greatest curse this world has ever known. But, 
instead of granting her request, this 'land of the 
free and home of the brave' has gone into partner- 
ship with the home destroyer; so the only reply 
weeping, petitioning womanhood received is, 'Go, 
make homes; be patient; bear children, and each 
year we will lay only about a hundred thousand 
of them in drunkards' graves.' 

"Besides the toll of death, the mother knows that 
other hundreds of thousands of our children will 
be brought by drink to alms-houses, county jails, 
penitentiaries, and asylums. 

"It is not that a woman loves a poodle-dog more 
than a baby that she chooses the dog. 



200 The Power of Woman 

"Does not society itself place the higher value on 
the dog? 

"If the woman pays her dog-tax, and puts a col- 
lar on the dog, the law protects her pet from theft 
and slaughter; but tell me, if you can, how does 
the State protect her boy? 

"At best, the State jails the boy, and breaks his 
mother's heart, when he falls into temptation and 
yields. 

"How can the mother protect her boy when so- 
ciety places the stamp of its approval upon drink 
and drinking places? 

"Don't you know that when a woman brings a 
child into the world she gambles a life for a life? 

"She deliberately turns from health, and goes 
alone down far into the valley of the shadow of 
death, not knowing if she shall remain there, or if 
she shall come forth leading by the hand another 
tiny little life. 

"Do you realize that thereafter her life and her 
aims are submerged in the loving service and care 
that shall rear a new human being to carry for- 
ward the marvelous chain of human existence? 

"Ought not the whole world love and protect 
her when she, counting the agony and travail a$ 
naught, rejoices that she has brought forth a child? 

"Yet — and especially if it be a man-child — 
there is from the first one haunting fear, the fear 
that her boy may fall to the level of the brute 



The Power of Woman 201 

through liquor; the fear of that curse which of all 
things is that can make him lose love for his fel- 
lows, his mother, and his God. And yet you collect 
a tax from saloons, and say that you are 'not the 
guardians of our brother.' 

"I know! I know! I know how the mother 
watches over the baby, the child, the youth, and 
the son grown to man's estate. 

"How she watches over him sleeping and wak- 
ing; warns him of the dangers of drink, but too 
often it availeth not. Ere the blush of youth has 
left his cheeks, she has seen him offered as a sacri- 
fice on the altar of a nation's greed. What won- 
der that a woman buys a ranch, and goes into sheep- 
raising instead of raising boys. 

"Wool-growers are protected; and, if the wolves 
should abound, our government would pay so 
much a head for their destruction. But the de- 
stroyer of our souls is protected by law. His busi- 
ness is legalized. 

"When the voters of the country make the rais- 
ing of children a safe business, then will our 
daughters become wives and joyful mothers of chil- 
dren ; and there will be great rejoicing throughout 
the land. And may that day come soon!" 

Could there be more pathos in anything, could 
anything be more pitiful in every way, than this 
despairing cry from a mother bereaved by drink? 
The appeal, though, is more than affecting. It 



202 The Power of Woman 

presents grim truths uncolored, and is logical in 
all that it expresses. Why should a woman risk her 
life in bringing another human being into the 
world, when the government under which she lives 
has made that world but a place of temptation 
leading to misery for the man or woman the child 
is to become? Why should she devote her years 
and abandon all her personal aims and aspirations 
to the uprearing of one whose future the federal 
power has made worse than unassured? If the 
child be a son, the government claims him. He 
must pay its taxes. He must even help support 
the evil of strong drink which threatens him. 
Should war come, and the occasion for his services 
arise in his maturity, he must respond to a call 
which is imperative. He belongs to the govern- 
ment. But does the government protect its own? 
Far from it. It but tempts him to his ruin, and will 
not even bury him should he die from the poison it 
places within his reach. No wonder mothers and 
possible mothers stand affrighted and aghast. The 
time of new conditions of great rejoicing through- 
out the land which the sad mother quoted prays 
for is not yet here, for the people have not yet 
shown more than a tithe of recognition of the 
enormity of the case, of the fact that the source of 
the drink evil is the attitude of their own govern- 
ment, impassive as it is before the ruin wrought 
by its policy of sanctioning crime, abetting crim- 



The Power of Woman 203 

inals, compounding with criminals, or of letting 
criminals alone. 

But if woman, with all her tenderly desperate 
efforts for men's salvation from the drink evil, has 
lost her hundreds of thousands, she has rescued her 
tens of thousands. It has been said — and wisely — 
that no woman should marry a man who has even 
begun the drinking habit. The one who marries 
a man to "reform" him takes her future happiness 
on but a doubtful chance. Yet woman, sympa- 
thetic, pitying, and hopeful, is always making this 
experiment. A thousand times her hopes are not 
sustained. An hundred times her influence is po- 
tent, and a man is saved. Love has conquered ap- 
petite, the better yearning has proved the stronger, 
and she who risked all for another has her full re- 
ward. In thousands of instances as well, distracted 
mothers have saved their tempted sons. In hosts 
of societies women have been the agents in deter- 
ring youth from courses where they must have suc- 
cumbed inevitably to the temptations of drink 
about them. 

In the great campaign to be inaugurated for the 
good of all the world, for weaning a nation from 
its greatest vice and curse, woman must be a po- 
tent factor. After all, the world belongs to her in 
all her gentleness and goodness. It is she who has 
labored so faithfully, and too often weepingly, in 
the past, she who will be a power in the greatest 



204 The Power of Woman 

of reforms, earnest, devoted, and assured. She 
needs no convincing. Her eyes have been opened 
for centuries to the enormity of the evil which must 
be done away with. She knows. She it is whose 
blessed presence will encourage, and whose deeds 
will aid the army of the Holy War. She it is whose 
petitions will have most effect in securing as a con- 
stant ally the greatest Power of all. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

WOMAN'S way. 

There are a thousand ways in which woman en- 
counters and sometimes overcomes her deadliest 
enemy, the strong drink which threatens the ruin 
of those who are everything to her, and whose well- 
being is her own. Not hers always the utilization 
of the arguments of men, the call upon the reason- 
ing powers, or the demand that reform should come 
because of its material necessity. She works in 
other fields. She is closer to the Divine than men, 
and relies for aid more often upon a source he 
sometimes forgets. There may or may not be 
special providences, but there are hosts of gentle 
women who believe that they were aided by a 
higher Power in attaining a man's salvation. How 
appealing and convincing is this story, told him- 
self by a seemingly helpless victim of strong drink 
in a publication issued in Philadelphia in the early 

'30's. 

"I well remember the first time that I ventured 
home in a state of intoxication. I knew my situa- 
tion, and dreaded that my wife should discover it. 
I exerted myself to conceal it. I affected to be 
witty, affectionate, and social; but it was a total 
failure. I felt the power of the fatal poison mo- 

205 



206 Woman's Way 

mentarily increasing. I saw the inquiring eye of 
my wife fixed upon me, with a look of unutterable 
grief. It was only with her aid that I was able to 
reach my pillow. 

"The checks which her ignorance had imposed 
upon me being now removed, all restraint was soon 
swept away, and I came home night after night in 
a state most revolting to the feelings of a delicate, 
affectionate female. In vain my amiable com- 
panion wept and expostulated. I was too much 
entangled and corrupted to break away either from 
my vices or associates. They neither feared God 
nor regarded man. I was led captive by their de- 
vices. 

"I became, I will not say an infidel ; for I was too 
ignorant of the theory of skepticism to be one. I 
became a mocker. Tools make a mock at sin;' 
and such a fool was I. I knew just enough of the 
Bible to make it my jest-book. I saw that this part 
of my conduct was extremely painful to my pious 
wife, and tried to restrain myself from trifling with 
the Bible in her presence; but I loved to raise loud 
laughter among my boisterous companions, and the 
indulgence so served to strengthen the pernicious 
habit that I was often detected in the use of this 
offensive language. 

"It was not till I became a father that her touch- 
ing appeals on this subject reached my conscience. 

" 'Must this child,' she would say, with tears, ( be 



Woman's Way 207 

trained up under these baleful influences? Must 
he be taught by parental example to despise and 
ridicule the Scriptures with his lisping tongue, be- 
fore he is able to read its contents, or realize its 
heavenly origin? No counteracting influence of 
mine can obliterate from his mind the jest with 
which his father has assailed this or that sacred 
passage.' 

"Our son had now become an interesting littl^ 
prattler, imitating whatever he heard or saw. I 
perceived, with a sort of diabolical pleasure, that 
the first efforts of his infant tongue were to imitate 
my profane language — language, the recollection 
of which now sends a thrill of grief and horror 
through my bosom. In vain did his sorrowing 
mother endeavor to counteract the influence of my 
wicked example. I continued to swear, and he to 
imitate my profanity, unconscious of its turpitude. 

"On a certain occasion I returned from one of 
my gambling excursions, and found my wife and 
child absent. On inquiry, I ascertained that she 
had gone to her customary place of retirement in a 
grove at some distance from the house. I knew 
she had gone there for the purpose of devotion. I 
had been accustomed to see her retire thither at 
the evening twilight; and, though I thought her 
piety unnecessary, I had no objection to it as a 
source of enjoyment to her, but that she should take 
her child with her excited my surprise. I felt a 



208 Woman's Way 

curiosity to follow her. I did so, and took a posi- 
tion unseen by her, but where I had a full view of 
her attitude and features. She was kneeling beside 
a rock, on which lay her Bible before her. One 
hand was placed on its open pages; the other held 
one hand of her fair boy, who was kneeling beside 
her, his eyes intently fixed on her face. She was 
pale and care-worn. Her eyes were closed; but 
the tears were chasing each other down her cheeks, 
as she poured forth her burdened soul in prayer, 
first for her husband, that he might be reclaimed 
and saved ; but especially did she plead with God 
that her son, whom she unreservedly dedicated to 
Him, might be saved from those sins which were 
taught him by his father's example. 

" 'Save him,' she cried, with agony — 'save him 
from taking thy great and holy name in vain ; for 
thou wilt not hold him guiltless that taketh thy 
name in vain ; and give his anxious mother wisdom, 
fortitude, and grace, effectually to correct and break 
up the habit of profaneness.' 

" 'Poor mother! pretty mother!' said the child, 
rising and wiping off her tears with his soft hand. 
'Don't cry, mother! father will come pretty soon.' 

"Wretch that I am!' said I to myself. What 
pangs have rent that gentle bosom! That child has 
so often seen her weep on account of my protracted 
absences, that the little fellow now supposes it the 
cause of her present agony and tears.' 



Woman's Way 209 

"I crept silently from my hiding-place, and re- 
turned home with a conscience harrowed up by 
the keenest self-reproaches. I knew that her feel- 
ings were not the fitful ebullitions of passion or 
excitement. I had long been convinced that her 
conduct was regulated by firm and virtuous princi- 
ples, and that the Bible, which I so lightly esteemed, 
was the rule of her life. 

"On her return to the house, she was solemn, but 
the law of kindness still ruled her tongue. She 
did not reproach me; but from that day she firmly 
and faithfully corrected our little son for the use 
of profane language, even in my presence, and 
when, perhaps, he had just caught it from my lips. 

"She succeeded in conquering the habit in her 
child ; and, when she had broken him, she had cured 
me. I resolved to abandon forever the use of lan- 
guage which had cost her so much pain. I did 
abandon it from that time. I was now effectually 
reclaimed from two of my prominent vices. 

"But my habits of intemperance were daily be- 
coming like brass bands. My morning, noon, and 
evening dram, my loss of appetite, and trembling 
nerves, proved the strong grasp it had upon my 
constitution. 

"I was still associated with my wicked compan- 
ions ; still followed up a system of gambling, which 
was rapidly bringing ruin on myself and my family. 
My handsome estate, left me by my father, was 



210 Woman's Way 

nearly wasted. Meantime my family increased. 
I resorted to the lottery, and every species of gamb- 
ling, to meet its increasing demands ; but every step 
plunged me deeper in guilt, debt, and misery. 

"My wife was in the habit of sitting up at night 
till my return, however late it might be. She had 
no doubt, in this way, saved me from perishing, as 
I was often too much intoxicated to find my way 
even to the door without her assistance. 

"One cold, wintry night, I had been out till a 
late hour, but returned free from intoxication. On 
coming silently to the house, I saw my wretched 
wife through the window, sitting over a handful of 
embers, with her babe and her Bible in her lap, 
and the big tears gushing from her eyes. 

"A vivid sense of my own baseness came over me. 
I paced the yard for some moments in agony. In 
attempting to enter the house, with a fresh resolu- 
tion on my tongue, I fainted and fell on the floor. 

"Upon the return of consciousness, I found my 
wife had drawn me to the fire, and was preparing 
me a bed, supposing my swoon to be the usual effect 
of ardent spirits. I sprang to her side, and my arms 
were about her in a moment. Something had hap- 
pened to me in my swoon. I felt it. I knew it. I 
knew that I was a changed man; that some force 
greater than my own will had broken the fetters 
which had bound me, and that somehow, in some 
way, it had been exerted through my wife. I told 



Woman's Way 211 

her all about it sobbingly, though I could not un- 
derstand. Her dear face was transfigured; but all 
she said, between her happy sobs, was, 

" 'I knew it would come. I knew I should get 
an answer from Him. It had to be. I needed it 
so.' 

"And the answer was for all time. I have never 
tasted liquor since the marvel of that night. I 
firmly believe her impassioned prayers brought it, 
and made of me another man." 

The affecting little story, true from life, is but 
an illustration of one of the ways of the dearest 
portion of creation in such crises as exist in tens of 
thousands of families today. It is not inconse- 
quential. It shows her faithfulness and hope and 
trust, and all these are elements of power. It may 
be that the story will aid in the encouragement of 
some other woman among the myriads who will aid 
in the impending struggle, upon the issue of which 
the world's welfare so much depends. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

RECLAIMING THE MAN. 

No man, whatever his unfortunate experience, 
should feel himself a hopeless and helpless drunk- 
ard. Only those who care not are necessarily 
doomed. The case is rare indeed of one resolved 
to break his shackles who cannot do so, and, not 
only that, but regain his former standing among 
men, with mental and bodily vigor and the power 
for accomplishing things restored. A great error 
regarding this has had too much influence upon the 
mind of the decent drinking man. 

"What is the use?" he says to himself. "Suppose 
I do stop drinking, enduring all the agony and trial 
of the thing, and absolutely succeed? What of it? 
My body will not be what it was, and my mind will 
not regain its old acuteness. I shall be but one 
among the weaklings — respectable it may be, but 
still a weakling. Why should I undergo such suf- 
fering, with only such reward? What's the use? 
I might as well go on getting what miserable meas- 
ure out of life I can, until the end comes. That's 
the only thing to do." 

Never was conclusion more false or foolish. The 
reformed drunkard does not remain in any way the 
sort of man he was when his reform began. Na- 

212 



Reclaiming the Man 213 

ture is splendid. She exerts herself in his behalf. 
She strains his blood to purity, rebuilds his tissues, 
restores his brain, and makes of him the man he 
once was. It may even be that he is, in one respect, 
a better man ; for he has had experience, though at 
too great a risk and cost, which has given wisdom 
to accrue to the good of others. It is a fact, en- 
dorsed by the highest scientific authorities, that a 
man may have been a drunkard for years, and yet, 
by mere abstinence, and wise, upbuilding living, 
regain, for their fullest and best exercise, every fac- 
ulty of mind and body. Could a more magnificent 
premium for successful fight be offered? 

The man who would abandon alcohol in any of 
its forms of course has a struggle before him — one 
the bitterness of which is in no wise comprehended 
by those who never have used intoxicants. They 
know nothing about it. Of many of them it may be 
said that they never could have accomplished what 
is done by the one who makes such fight, and wins. 
It demands resolve, resistance, and confidence in 
the outcome; and this applies to the periodic as 
well as to the steady drinker; for, when the craving 
comes to the first it is terrible and compelling. The 
first step to be taken in any case is to stop, within a 
week, at longest. 

It may not agree with the views of the severe 
moralist, or those of some of the reformers who say 
that he who would abandon the use of alcohol 



214 Reclaiming the Man 

should stop, and forever, from the moment his re- 
solve is made ; but there are other moralists and re- 
formers, more lenient, more practical, and far more 
effective in what they do. They know! They 
know that suddenly to deprive of further narcotic 
a man on the verge of delirium tremens may mean 
his sudden death. The records of the Chicago 
House of Correction, for instance, tell the story of 
many drunkards arrested by the police on the 
streets, thrown into cells, and refused all stimulant 
until arraigned in court, convicted and taken to 
the prison too late to be saved, though given whis- 
key immediately in a place where science, experi- 
ence, and common sense held sway. The "taper- 
ing-off" process may be flouted by the uninformed 
as a needless and a vicious thing, an excuse for* 
further indulgence; but it is sometimes an essential. 
It is a concession to a condition. There must, how- 
ever, be no concession in the "tapering." It is but 
an unpleasantly necessary part of the programme 
of getting well; and to the man truthfully, deter- 
minedly resolved, a few days — for this is intended 
as an advisory and helpful chapter — should be suf- 
ficient. The abandonment of alcohol totally, even 
then, will be a wrench ; but the danger of collapse 
will have passed, and what follows will be but 
dogged, worthy, admirable, set-jawed endurance. 
Any man who is a real man can accomplish it. 
What is it that is to be sought immediately in 



Reclaiming the Man 215 

this struggle? The desire for drink comes from 
the condition of the body. The whole system is 
abnormal. To make it normal, then, is the end to be 
attained. The food enters the stomach only to find 
that it may not be acted upon by the gastric juices, 
which are kept away from it by a foul extra inner 
lining caused by liquor, the impure and imperfect 
chyle reaching the heart through its proper chan- 
nels not being of the kind to be changed by the oxy- 
gen it gets later in the lungs to pure arterial blood. 
The blood, sent to all parts of the body, does not 
give to the infinitesimal suckers which line the 
arteries the food it contains for the rebuilding 
of the tissues, since they are semi-paralyzed by al- 
cohol, and do not do their work. The liver, the 
kidneys, and the brain, are all sick and incapaci- 
tated; the nerves are shrieking out alarms; and the 
whole being is starved and fearing. Yet all it asks 
is to be let alone! 

What happens when the constant supply of alco- 
hol ceases? The body knows, and is encouraged 
and promptly militant. It summons all its forces, 
and the fight begins without a thought of quarter. 
The enemy at hand can be cared for, and, unless it 
gets re-enforcements, there can be no question as 
to the issue. Nature has provided the forces and 
all the munitions. The warrior blood cells come 
dancing into the fray. The poisonous, viscous false 
inner lining of the stomach made by alcohol is at^ 



216 Reclaiming the Man 

tacked, broken up, dissolved, and cast away. The 
indentations of the mucous membrane are exposed, 
with their gastric juices ready to transform the food 
into what will enter the blood purely and make it 
nourishing. The now assisted liver, kidneys and 
brain regain their form and substance and ability, 
and perform their duties easily and well. Every 
function lately thwarted and threatened with total 
wreck is restored to activity and the result of all is 
a sound mind in a sound and painless body. What 
has caused this? Merely the absorption of proper 
food, and its transformation into bodily nourish- 
ment by digestive organs no longer hampered or 
impaired. 

Adventitious helps in recovery from the drink 
habit must not be altogether despised. Medical 
science can accomplish much and, while no course 
of treatment has been yet accepted as infallible, one 
at least has such assurance of its effectiveness as to 
command regard. The treatment was first adopted 
by Mr. Charles B. Towns, of New York, who 
generously made his formula known, giving it to 
Dr. Alexander Lambert, of Bellevue Hospital and 
a professor in Cornell University. Dr. Lambert 
gave the full medical details in an article in the 
Journal of the American Medical Association and, 
later, the nature of the treatment was more fully 
explained to the public through the public spirit 
of the Success Magazine. 



Reclaiming the Man 217 

Briefly, the treatment is 'declared to obliterate 
the craving for narcotics, including alcohol. It 
consists of the administration of a mixture of 
belladonna, xanthoxylum (prickly ash), and hy- 
oscyamus, with a proper amount of active catharsis 
to stimulate the action of the liver and produce 
rapid and thorough elimination of the narcotic. 
There is not a sudden withdrawal of the narcotic 
but enough of it is given at certain stated intervals 
to prevent the appearance of disquieting with- 
drawal symptoms and to make the patient com- 
fortable. The patients do not suffer greatly and 
the obliteration of the craving is not a matter of 
weeks or months but is accomplished within less 
than five days. "This result," says Dr. Lambert, 
"is often so dramatic that one hesitates to believe 
it possible." It may be added that the treatment, 
after a series of tests, has been approved by the 
Government for use in the Philippines. It is not 
one which may be wisely self-administered but 
which should be taken under the supervision of a 
good physician. 

Such is one course of treatment given by excellent 
authorities as a cure for alcoholism. It is pre- 
sented here as certainly of interest and possibly of 
great value. Assuredly, never was formula more 
needed than one promising aid in eliminating the 
most widespread and terrible of diseases. 

It is necessary, as part of this recovery, that the 
man who has just stopped drinking should regu- 



218 Reclaiming the Man 

late his diet. He requires nutritious food; that is, 
food that is composed of what is readily assimilat- 
ed. The average weight of the nutritious food 
consumed by a man in a single day has been esti- 
mated at about six pounds. Three pounds and a 
half is mineral, including the water and the salts ; 
one pound is animal, including meat, butter, and 
eggs ; and one pound and a half is vegetable. How 
much food such as this one refraining from the 
use of alcohol and seeking the restoration of a 
sound body may consume is a matter to be deter- 
mined by himself. He is not unlikely to eat too 
much. He has, really, been starved; for, however 
full and bloated his appearance sometimes may be, 
the drinker has digested an insufficient amount of 
food. With digestion regained, appetite — the 
voice of the enfeebled system — becomes insistent. 
So, it is wise for the man rebuilding to restrain 
himself for a season, until the demanding stomach 
shall have acquired its old-time strength and vigor. 
The recuperative and reconstructive process in- 
volves some time, and a disregard for the fact has 
proved frequently an obstacle in the way of per- 
manent reform. Be firm and gentle with the stom- 
ach for a while, until it can take care of itself. In 
the completeness of bodily health lies the strength 
of resistance to any return to stimulants. 

Sound of mind and sound of body, the fight 
against the inclination to drink becomes only 
a matter of fortified will. The war is not 



Reclaiming the Man 219 

ended with a single battle or a truce. There 
will come times of fatigue, of excitement, 
of depression, induced by any of the events 
of life, when the old inclination will arise 
again; for the ex-drinker has, what the fortunate 
man who never took a drink has not, the memory 
and the knowledge of how exaltation or oblivion 
may be attained — though but temporary, degrad- 
ing, at a thousand times too great a cost in the end 
— and here the will and common sense must sim- 
ply exert themselves. It is only a matter of swift 
and sensible resolve; but that is an essential. There 
is no royal road to recovery from the drinking 
habit, but it may be made a comparatively easy one. 
A little setting of the jaws and the involuntary 
imagination of how a drink would taste and what 
its effect would be will pass away. It is the test 
time. The effort will be but brief, and, with each 
recurrence of the temptation and the annoyance, 
the impulse will be weaker until it becomes only a 
ghost, a harmless spectre of the harmful past. 

And, finally, let it be borne in mind that the 
world, to an extent, is being "run," and, as far as 
they are concerned, run well, by men who were 
once the slaves of intoxicants, but who had the 
will and the courage to abandon them. There is 
nothing strange about that. Any of us may fall 
into evil courses — those with force of character 
enough to leave them are among the world's strong 
men. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

HOLDING THE FORT. 

It is a curious fact, one rarely considered yet full 
of encouragement to the reformed inebriate, that 
such as he may sometimes benefit decidedly by his 
hard experience. In other words, his general 
health may even be improved as a result of the les- 
son taught by the suffering he has endured. This 
does not, of course, imply that he has received any- 
thing but hurt from the alcohol taken into his 
system; it was a poison and until its complete 
elimination he was physically and mentally inferior 
to what he had been before and time was required 
to attain his former status of health whatever it may 
have been. His benefit comes only from the fact 
that, because of what he has suffered and learned, 
he adopts a new mode of life, quite apart from all 
consideration of intoxicants. Alarmed, in -fear of 
insanity or death it may be, he made a study of him- 
self inducing resolves which, if he be a man of 
sufficient natural wisdom and force of character, 
he now puts into action. He is bound to have at 
least some little recompense for all he has under- 
gone. He can never fully square the account with 
alcohol; he cannot collect for the lost time and 

220 



Holding the Fort 221 

opportunities nor for the agonies endured of body 
or of mind, but he can utilize the capital of intelli- 
gence he acquired so miserably. 

The man who has been a victim of alcohol and 
has stopped drinking cannot have failed to learn 
much about his body, of its proper care and of the 
agencies conducing to its welfare. He has learned 
that, all things considered, largely in the degree 
that he cares for the machine where all his physical 
sensations dwell and all his thoughts are bred will 
it respond by giving him health and happiness. 
There are many matters of detail in connection 
with the care of this machine, the human body, and 
perhaps the most important thing learned by the 
man who has made a successful fight with liquor is 
how to eat. 

Attention has already been called to the nature 
of the food to be taken by the reformed drinking 
man during the period when the first recuperative 
and reconstructive process is going on, the time 
when he is a patient still, when beef tea or some- 
thing of the sort is all the food his burned-out 
stomach can digest and when increasing appetite 
cannot safely be gratified to repletion. Before this 
experience the patient may never have paid much 
attention to his stomach and have eaten as eats 
the tiger or the bullock, with no regard to quantity, 
or time, or manner of consumption. But his ex- 



222 Holding the Fort 

perience in convalescence has induced reflection, 
and what he has learned is worth a fortune. 

A fine old character in one of the Western states, 
a student of things and a philosopher in his homely 
way, reached, after a lifetime of observation, a cer- 
tain conclusion upon a fact of universal interest. 
This conclusion he was wont to express most firmly 
and judicially: 

"As a nation, we eat too much!" 

Never statesman thundering grandly in the 
Senate chamber gave utterance to a sentiment more 
just or a fact more well assured. As a nation and 
as individuals, we eat too much, and this is what 
the student of physiology and of what is wise in 
living is becoming more and more assured of and 
is explaining by tongue and pen. Were the or- 
dinary individual to eat but little more than half of 
what he or she consumes there is little doubt that 
he or she would be the better for it, and this is what 
he who has recovered from the liquor habit should 
have learned, as he sometimes does. 

It may seem like going into trivial details, but it 
is sought to tell here what is practical and helpful. 
How does one who has learned that to eat less is 
the best thing for him, continue to restrain his ap- 
petite without unceasing self denial? The answer 
is simple enough ; he must eat more slowly. What 
is the device by which one learns to eat more 
slowly, until the act becomes a habit? Simply by 



Holding the Fort 223 

accustoming himself to a perfect chewing of his 
food. Books, wise and admirable ones, have been 
written on this single subject within recent years; 
tests have been made by authorities medical and 
scientific, with the result that the American world, 
at least, is becoming better informed regarding 
how to eat. 

It is not so much a matter of selection of food— 
if the food be properly eaten the range of choice 
may safely be enlarged — it is a mere question of 
chewing. What happens when every mouthful 
taken is masticated before it is swallowed until it 
becomes a pulp which can be reduced no longer? 
It is partly digested, so to speak, before it has left 
the mouth. Saturated with the saliva which nature 
provides when mastication is performed, changed 
by the ptyaline, it is in good condition to enter the 
stomach, pass normally through the further diges- 
tive and assimilative processes and be conveyed by 
the circulation to renew the body properly, by sup- 
plying new tissue for that exhausted. 

Thorough mastication has not only the merit of 
giving added enjoyment of food, through the 
added opportunity given the sense of taste, but the 
greater one that it prevents over-eating. A law of 
nature obeyed, she rewards the obedient by reliev- 
ing him of the responsibility of deciding when he 
has eaten enough. If he chew his food as indicated 
his appetite will take care of itself and depart be- 



224 Holding the Fort 

fore he has given his stomach more than it can 
easily digest. 

So will appear the utmost importance to the re- 
formed inebriate of observing the rule of chewing 
every mouthful thoroughly. He, exceptionally, 
cannot afford a reckless mode of eating, for his is 
a stomach which must be guarded. Biliousness, a 
dyspeptic tendency, any form of indigestion, is but 
provocative of a return to drink as a relief, and this 
cannot be risked. The reformed drinking man 
must chew his food well. All should do so, but 
with him it is imperative. He is on parole. The 
trial will be nothing; the habit is readily acquired, 
and will become him with a safeguard as well as an 
avoidance of discomforts he may have sometimes 
felt before he became a drunkard. In any event, 
no choice is left him now. 

So much for the eating of the man who has re- 
formed, but there are other considerations as to 
health which he can by no means neglect. He 
must never for a moment forget that, in one respect, 
he is not as other men. He cannot do what Smith 
or Jones or Robinson might do, though he may be 
in better health than any of the three. His case is 
just the reverse of the man who has recovered from 
an attack of smallpox. Because he has suffered 
from the worse disease of all he is not on that ac- 
count immune. On the contrary, he is only at all 
times more liable to its attack. He is the victim it 



Holding the Fort 225 

is always seeking, and so upon him it devolves to 
maintain a standard of health which will have the 
fewest possible deflections. There are other weak 
points than the stomach and the organs with which 
it is most intimately connected. The general mode 
of life is something to be borne in mind more seri- 
ously — that is so far as self-defense is immediately 
concerned — by the former inebriate than by those 
whom a certain sort of influence might not affect so 
certainly or gravely. His should certainly be no 
listless and objectless existence, whatever his con- 
dition; the strenuous life, with a mind well occu- 
pied, is usually the healthy one, but, on the other 
hand, there are occupations too sedentary and try- 
ing for one who should not subject his nerves to 
the severest tests. It is not mere bodily pain which 
suggests to the former inebriate a resort to stimu- 
lants for relief; it is when an almost incontrollable 
desire for immediate change comes upon him. It 
is torture to sit too long at a desk; it is trying be- 
yond expression to perform the same duty over and 
over again throughout long hours; there comes a 
nervous clamor for something to do away with the 
wearing restlessness, and the unfortunate who has 
had experience knows that drink will ease him for 
the time. Of course circumstances may arise when 
one must be subjected to the test and when it must 
be endured, but if it be practicable, the man not 
long recovered from the disease of alcoholism 



226 Holding the Fort 

should seek such occupation as will not subject him 
to needless strain. This reservation fortunately 
does not apply to any active business ; the condi- 
tions are relatively few which the former drinking 
man need fear to face, but these should be avoided, 
when possible without too great a sacrifice. 

Recuperation and general sustenance of all the 
energies come naturally from sleep, and sleep 
which shall be the constant restorer can best be 
secured by exercise and air. This fact is common 
knowledge and has been so almost since men began 
to reason, but, nevertheless, is one sometimes for- 
gotten. There are few who, if they will, cannot 
find some opportunity for at least walking and the 
deep breathing of pure air and each of these is an 
enemy of the alcoholic tendency, simpfy because 
each serves to keep both mind and body normal. 

The exercise and air taken deeply into the lungs 
will assist in securing perfect sleep, and the man 
who has slept well is not in much immediate 
danger of yielding to a sudden craving. There are 
different ways of sleeping, however, and some of 
them are bad. The air — fresh air, is needed as 
abundantly at night as in the daytime, else the sleep 
will have lost its profit. We inhale oxygen and 
constantly exhale deadly carbonic acid gas. It has 
been estimated that in a room eight feet by seven, 
and eight feet high, if it were so tightly closed that 
no fresh air could enter, a man would breathe out 



Holding the Fort 227 

in a single night, a sufficient quantity of carbonic 
acid gas to destroy his life. Each time he inhales 
the air it unites with the carbon and generates the 
gas which he breathes out into the room. There is 
no occasion for sleeping in a room where such 
danger may exist. One can sleep in what is, prac- 
tically, the air of all outdoors. Fear not the open, 
or partly open, window. 

And all this may seem but a commonplace lay- 
ing down of a set of rules for the maintenance of 
good health. In truth, it is little more than that, 
but the rules are sound and practicable. They are 
the simplest, given briefly, for the attainment of the 
end. It would be an admirable thing if they were 
observed by all. The man who has abandoned 
drinking cannot afford to ignore them. To him 
regard for them is an essential. Through their ob- 
servance his strength will be reinforced for resist- 
ing a temptation, the fearful character of which 
those more fortunate can in no way comprehend. 
Having already accomplished so much, he will be 
enabled through them to reap permanently the 
fruits of the great victory he has won. 

But, and let it be reiterated, it is the mind of the 
ex-inebriate which must be cleansed as well as his 
body. If he become vaunting and forgetful, his 
chances of permanent reform are lessened, to the 
extent of his increasing carelessness. Never for a 
moment should he fail to consider what liquor has 



228 Holding the Fort 

done nor the nature of the class to which he has be- 
longed. He has been a weak slave, one of those of 
whom there are at least a million in the United 
States. The great cities have their tens of thou- 
sands, the towns their hundreds while the village 
groggeries produce their dozens. The figures are 
enormous. Hundreds of thousands of leeches 
have attached themselves to the toiling portion of 
humanity. A large proportion of these may, at one 
time, have been good citizens, men of average in- 
telligence and education, but drinking has changed 
their character and they have become a burden on 
the community. They have compelled it to support, 
in one way or another, a class of idlers, hangers-on 
and criminals. This weak-minded or vicious and al- 
ways non-producing class, is the output of alcohol- 
ism and is but waste product as it is a wasting force. 
The drinker wastes his substance in mind and body 
as he does his money and material possessions. In- 
evitably he suffers the consequences. It is prac- 
tically a law of nature that he who throws away 
his opportunities and scatters his substance will see 
the day when he will regret what he has neglected 
and need what he has squandered. 

The reformed inebriate must ever realize that 
his condition is but the result of his own folly and 
excesses, that he alone is culpable and that the con- 
sequences from which he suffers he brought upon 
himself. Others were not to blame. The reflection 



Holding the Fort 229 

must not bring him discouragement, but make him 
the more firmly resolved upon an adherence to 
the new course he has marked out for himself, con- 
sidering the present and the future regardless of 
the past, yet ever bearing in mind that his con- 
dition is the result of his own action. 

He will find assistance. Human nature is not 
as bad as it is sometimes imagined and described. 
It is true that, to use the old but expressive simile, 
"a man cannot lift himself by his boot-straps," but 
the inebriate who would reform will always find 
a friend uplifting him at either arm. His individ- 
ual strength in attaining what he seeks will be sup- 
plemented always by the strength of others. When 
a man once under the subjection of alcohol, makes a 
sincere and honest effort to free himself and to 
maintain his liberty, he will meet what will be 
usually a surprise and one of a sort to touch the 
heart and show how good the world is, after 
all. Friends, acquaintances, even warm-hearted 
strangers who may know the circumstances will 
be at hand with assistance which is practical and 
with a zeal which is unaffected in lifting him to 
the position he should occupy according to what 
his new deserving may be. He will feel himself 
a man among men again. 

True, all the money ever expended for drink is 
wasted utterly. It is wanted now, but it is gone. 
Every drink taken has had an effect as well upon 



230 Holding the Port 

the mind and body. These are consequences none 
may avoid. Some inebriates may have possessed 
money, inherited or otherwise, in such amount that 
they will never lack food nor clothing nor sufficient 
shelter, but even these cannot escape the evil out- 
come of what they hazarded, for alcohol never 
fails to injure. If it does not kill it maims. They, 
the well-to-do, must suffer from the affected 
stomach, or liver, or kidney, or whatever part of 
the body's forces has been crippled by the enemy. 
Money cannot buy immunity. Alcohol gives no 
quarter. 

But the grim facts need not be disheartening. 
The reformed inebriate should bear in mind their 
full significance, but he should allow them to cast 
no gloom upon his present, nor cloud his future. 
So far as they affect him at all as he holds the fort 
they should but stimulate him to a resistance which 
cannot be overcome. Yesterday is gone ; today and 
tomorrow are the only things ! The man who thinks 
"can't" never does. The man who thinks "can" 
succeeds ! 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE NON-COMBATANT. 

Upon those who have remained indifferent to the 
struggle between the forces of temperance and in- 
temperance in the United States must largely de- 
pend the issue. They constitute the army at the side 
which must eventually engage, for the war can 
never end without a campaign which shall be 
decisive, and the present non-combatants must in- 
evitably appear upon the field. They may, for a 
season, retain their neutral attitude, but the alter- 
native cannot be avoided in the end. Let conditions 
remain as they have existed for a quarter of a cen- 
tury; let the liquor interests extend as steadily as 
they have in the past their throttling grasp upon 
the country; let the resultant evils make themselves, 
in increased proportions, more grossly and alarm- 
ingly apparent than they are already, and the now 
inert and apathetic will exhibit the interest and 
energy which should be shown today. They will 
arouse themselves, because they will have no choice. 
It will be a matter of self-defense. The time will 
come, and it is by no means distant, when the 
enormity of the situation will be plain to every 
citizen and the legions of reform so reinforced as 

231 



232 The Non-Combatant 

to make them irresistible. There are a great many 
more good people than bad in the United States. 

Why, in fact, should the attitude of those who 
have been oblivious and careless continue any 
longer? This is a time of protest and uprising 
upon the part of the intelligent and more observ- 
ant and alert among the American people; they 
perceive that the drink evil has reached propor- 
tions too threatening to be unconsidered, and rea- 
lize that assistance to the movement they have in- 
augurated is the part of good citizenship. There 
are many ways of giving aid. It is objected some- 
times by friends of temperance who do nothing for 
the cause they favor that it has become too much of 
a political question. To such as these it may be an- 
swered simply; what of it? Are not most reforms 
under our system of government accomplished by 
a vote of the people? But politics does not mean 
party. What is politics for and what is the duty 
of the politician, or at least, what are, nowadays, 
his usual aims and practices? What are the ob- 
jects of brass bands and parades and torchlight 
processions and oratory in public halls, but to 
kindle the flame of partisanship and secure the 
emoluments of office for the group who are in con- 
trol of what is technically known as the "machine?" 
What is there generally but the "machine" to 
either of the two great parties, as they are consti- 
tuted today, and why should the ordinary citizen 



The Non-Combatant 233 

be bound to the whiffletrees of such organization, 
whatever may be the issue? What has the ordinary 
man to do with politics, so far as self-interest goes? 
Why should the young man of today ally himself, 
as a matter of course, with either party, merely be- 
cause his grandfather or his father was in its ranks? 
The questions to be settled have changed often with 
the years. The same process of reasoning which 
applies to the younger voter will fit the middle- 
aged. New problems to be settled at the polls arise 
from time to time and how the parties will align 
themselves is little more than a matter of chance. 
The attitude of either will inevitably be decided by 
the so-called "bosses," not by the rank and file, not 
by the sentiment of the majority, for the majority 
in the party is not consulted. Directly and per- 
sonally, what wise man has any use for politics ex- 
cept when some grave decision is involved which 
can be determined only by the ballot, as, for in- 
stance, was the case when the great question of 
the continuance of slavery was before the people for 
an answer. As an occupation who would enter pol- 
itics who has regard for his prosperity and his as- 
sured relations with the world about him? Of all 
possible openings for accomplishment, for becom- 
ing one who shall do good and win and maintain 
the regard and respect of his fellow men, what field 
conceivable is worse than that of professional pol- 
itics? Less than one per cent, of voters can secure 



234 The N on- Combatant 

office from either the municipal, state or federal 
government, and he who is so fortunate, as he may 
deem himself at first, as to get into place will, in 
the great majority of cases, regret it in after life, 
when the inevitable shifting comes and he finds 
himself without an occupation and unfitted for 
meeting the emergencies to which other men are 
equal. 

What momentous issue, what question of vital 
and absorbing interest is now before the people 
of the United States? There may exist some dif- 
ference of opinion as to a monetary policy or 
changes in tariff, but these are passing things and 
not such issues as force men to range themselves in 
line for conscience's sake. There is not before the 
American people any subject for action to com- 
pare in magnitude or gravity with the question 
of whether or not the evil of the liquor traffic shall 
be abated. Financially, the matter of the tariff is 
a trifling thing beside it, for liquor costs the people 
over a billion and a half of dollars a year. As a 
policy the fruits of which will continue throughout 
the future it is unsurpassable, for its returns will 
be without a limit as offsetting the enormous drain 
which has lasted so long and grown with every 
year. Morally there is nothing which can equal 
it, for the crime and misery which are its features 
alike appeal to and demand of him who has a con- 
science that he labor for their abolishment by the 



The N on- Combatant 235 

removal of their cause. With the man just and 
well-informed there can be no debate as to what 
matter of most importance awaits today the deci- 
sion of the people. 

Why should what is called fealty to party pre- 
vent a man from taking the course politically which 
seems best for him as a citizen? Such fealty is a 
natural thing and, sometimes, has logic on its side, 
for only by solid combination can great emergencies 
be met, but laxity is certainly allowable when the 
emergencies are non-existent. Fealty to party 
should not, under any circumstances, imply a lack 
of fealty to principle. Principle should come first. 
It is generally acknowledged that, in times of rela- 
tive political peace, the obligations of the voter to 
his organization are not much to be considered. 
The common sense of a people like ours would 
naturally compel such view. Disregard of party 
lines and boss dictation in support of candidates 
for municipal and even for state offices has long 
been an admitted privilege of the citizen whose 
political habits may bear a party name, and there 
appears no reason why the exercise of personal 
judgment may not be indulged in even when 
voting for a congressman. The congressman does 
not necessarily represent the tenets of a party, as 
does a Presidential candidate, one pledged in the 
face of the world, to sustain a platform where the 
party's policies are outlined and of which he is the 



236 The Non-Comhatani 

accepting and accepted exponent. Why, then, 
may not the ordinary voter demand of his congres- 
sional candidate that he promise his support of 
certain legislation which the voter may consider es- 
sential for the general good, or, in the event of his 
refusal, incur the risk of losing a vote to an op- 
ponent who may favor the required enactment 
Take a case in point. A war is being waged 
throughout the world against consumption. To 
carry on this war successfully, to secure the final 
eradication of what is known as the White Plague, 
as of any other plague, certain congressional action 
may be, is, indeed, considered necessary, that the 
scientific campaign to rid humanity of one of its 
greatest foes may be conducted under the most fav- 
orable circumstances. Suppose now, a candidate 
for congress were to express himself as opposed to 
such legislation, were to declare that consumption 
could not be fought successfully, and, that, in any 
event, whether it could be checked or not, the whole 
thing was a matter of indifference to him and that 
he would not promise his support to the suggested 
measures? What would be the fate at the polls of 
that particular congressman? Who would feel 
bound to support him, party or no party? He 
would not go to Washington! 

But the White Plague is a minor evil, compared 
with the plague of drink. Statistics of the deaths 
occurring annually from consumption, and of the 



The Non-Combatant 237 

enormous yearly money loss resultant from the 
dread disease, are abundant and clear and definite 
but the figures, appalling as they are, are puny com- 
pared with those telling of the number of deaths 
and the tremendous monetary drain upon the coun- 
try resulting from the use of alcohol. It is, in- 
deed, one of consumption's greatest allies. And, 
consumption, fearful as it is in the taking of human 
life, does not fill the penitentiaries and insane 
asylums and almshouses nor do its ravages affect 
the very souls of its hosts of victims. There is no 
other plague, there is no danger of any kind, there 
is no evil to compare with the evil of strong drink. 

So, why may not any sensible and conscientious 
citizen vote as he thinks best, regardless of the dic- 
tates of party, when a subject as important, as grave 
in all ways to any American as the suppression of 
the drink evil is involved? It is the problem of 
the day; why avoid its consideration or refrain 
from such action as indicated by your judgment 
and regard for the general good. Legislation is 
demanded to relieve the country from its heaviest 
affliction ; why hesitate over advocacy of the enact- 
ment of such laws as are required, or fail in earnest 
support of such congressional candidates as will 
do their duty in the matter? It is not a party ques- 
tion at all; it is but a question of patriotism, wise 
citizenship, a regard for the good of everybody. 

There are thousands of men, even among those 



238 The N on- Combatant 

who drink who, if the power were given them to 
sweep away the whole alcoholic business by a wave 
of the hand, would not hesitate a moment. They 
recognize the fearful evil and, though they may 
have carelessly condoned it, or, in their unthinking 
weakness, abetted it in a degree, yet would crush 
out the thing utterly and forever if they could. 
Though they have no overpowering scruples, they 
have reason and public spirit, and would for such 
an end submit to what they might consider an oc- 
casional inconvenience. They would endure that 
for the sake of the general good. 

To the well-meaning but apathetic it may be 
said that if you are not sufficiently aroused to take 
an active part in the warfare against the alcoholic 
evil, you can, at least, give the open moral support 
which is the next best thing, better than good-na- 
tured criticism or derision of a cause which you 
know, in your heart, will when it has succeeded 
everywhere, make the country infinitely more pros- 
perous and happy. You can easily take part 
enough to say: "Well, maybe those people are 
sometimes a shade too strenuous, their zeal and 
rugged methods may not always suit us, but they 
are on the right track, and it will be a good thing 
for one of the great parties when it makes their call 
its slogan. I'll be with the party more faithfully 
than ever, then." You can do this and so, if not 
actually in the fray, become a sympathizer of some 



The N on- Comb at ant 239 

merit. But you will not remain a mere onlooker. 

The temperance movement is bound to succeed 
eventually. No movement which recurs as it has 
through the years with constantly increasing 
strength lacks the great vitality to make it, finally, 
an all-sweeping thing. If not today, then tomor- 
row will the triumph come. You cannot avoid 
absorption in the cause at last. It is vital ; a move- 
ment compelled by an emergency and the peril 
of the nation. There must be action ; just as action 
is imperative to provide against the extension of 
any pestilence, an inroad of the sea, or the advance 
of a conflagration. Whatever your indifference 
now, it will depart. The law of self-preservation 
will command observance. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

STRANGE AND SENSELESS. 

The drinking of alcoholic liquors is strange and 
senseless. It is strange because it is almost in- 
conceivable that any human being, sane and sup- 
posedly reasoning, can deliberately take into his 
body that which he knows will affect it injuriously 
and at once, while distorting the mind as well. He 
knows — anyone of ordinary understanding knows — 
that the alcoholic poison will disarrange the whole 
bodily machinery to its hurt — and that with its 
presence in the brain intelligence departs. This is 
no wisdom of the learned; all have it; even the 
children know what follows the taking of strong 
drink. It is as well understood as it is that a hand 
thrust into the fire will be burned. There is always 
the same result, unvarying, save, perhaps, in its 
immediate degree. A drink cannot possibly be of 
benefit to anyone. It is not sustenance; it is not 
a curative; it is not even a negative thing; it is 
simply an exciting poison. It eats at the organs of 
the body of the drinker while it makes a fool of 
him. Everybody knows all about it; everybody 
has known all about it for a thousand years. The 
man may have witnessed an operation in a hospital, 

240 



Strange and Senseless 241 

and quivered sympathetically as the knife was used; 
he may have visited an insane asylum and shud- 
dered at the words and the faces of the gibbering 
unfortunates, yet he coolly applies what may be 
deadlier than the knife to his own body, and trans- 
forms himself at the same time into a creature wit- 
less or maniacal. Why does he do it? What wildly 
senseless freak, what abandonment of all ordinary 
judgment and caution can result in such an act on 
his part? He would not thrust his hand into the 
fire or hurl himself over a precipice. Why does 
he take a drink? 

Who shall answer the question in its entirety? 
Perhaps a different solution of the monstrous prob- 
lem should be given in the case of different individ- 
uals. The only marvel is that the problem should 
exist at all. It is beyond all conception, miserably 
perplexing, dazing. A man walking along the 
street does not suddenly turn aside and butt his 
head furiously against a wall in an endeavor to 
dash out his brains ; yet he will turn aside as un- 
explainably, pass through a door in that wall, and, 
in the room he enters, accomplish what is as un- 
explainable and grotesque and suicidal as if he had 
done the thing just described! The question is 
bewildering; it is amazing. Why do men drink? 

There are no words which can describe the 
mental change which comes upon the drinker. The 
physical change, the character of the injury done 



242 Strange and Senseless 

the different organs by alcohol, can be made plain 
by the use of simple language, but the effect upon 
the mind is beyond portrayal. The painter who 
would attempt it must use a canvass rough and 
somber and dip his brush in water, or in venom, or 
in foulness. With every man the mental variation 
has its distinctive surprises and repulsiveness. Fool, 
dog, or serpent, as the case may be, the one becomes 
from whom liquor has taken away the sense and 
comprehension which make the man. How pit- 
iable are all the phases. 

A man sensible, well-balanced ordinarily, re- 
served of demeanor, becomes drunken. His body 
remains visible to the eye, but he himself has gone.' 
The individuality which men regarded well exists 
no longer. In its place is another, a silly, boast- 
ful stranger, one who in his estimation owns the 
world and all its people, loud-voiced and vain, tell- 
ing of past great exploits and promising greater 
ones for the future. Those who know him look on 
and listen in amazement. Can this be the same 
man, this offensive, overbearing brute? It seems 
incredible, but it is true. This man who vaunts 
himself and belittles others, who is insulting and 
irritating beyond all telling, is the same in body as 
the one whom men loved and respected, who had 
regard for the feelings of others and was ready to 
subordinate himself upon occasion. Now reserve, 
good feeling and good taste are gone and, instead of 



Strange and Senseless 243 

friends, he is making enemies, instead of admirers, 
those who hold him in contempt. It is the effect 
of the alcohol which has reached his brain. He 
knew beforehand what the intoxicant would do to 
him. Why did he drink? 

Vary? Of course the effects vary. Another man, 
equally foolish, drinks and may not be boastful nor 
aggressive, but be none the less repulsive. He is 
tearfully reminiscent. Ah, the happy days that 
are gone! He is collar-clinging. He demands a 
friend into whose sympathetic ear he can pour his 
tale of woe, and it matters not at all who that friend 
may be. An utter stranger will answer every pur- 
pose, if he will but listen. Driveling, whining, 
puling, this demented animal who, an hour or two 
ago, was a man among men, goes back in memory 
to the days which may not have been and looks on 
them and weeps. The temptation is chiefly to drop 
him into a hole of some sort, to get rid of him in 
any way; he is a nuisance and unbearable. Yet 
this man, sober, was not an annoying personage. He 
was about the same as other men. He, too, knew 
what would happen if he took a drink but the 
knowledge did not deter him. Why was that? 

A thing of laughter loud and meaningless, merely 
a coarsely physically happy brute, is sometimes 
the freakish product of strong drink. He knows 
nothing save that he is swimming all around in all 
that's right and that this is always going to be the 



244 Strange and Senseless 

way with him. He gurgles, and slaps other men 
upon the back. He is vacuous of countenance, save 
for a grin, and his speech lacks incident or argu- 
ment, but that is nothing. He "feels good" and 
that is all sufficient for him. He is like the calf 
leaping clumsily about in the pasture, without 
much mind or comprehension, but confident that 
there is some occasion for its uncouth gambolling. 
Unlike the calf, though, his mood will be followed 
by an opposite condition; depression will succeed 
exhilaration and sullenness will follow his exuber- 
ance. Experience must have taught him that, but 
still he drinks ! 

Changes! No wand of witch-hag could effect 
so many changes of character so sinister as alcohol 
upon its victims. Sometimes the transformation is 
so fearful that a dangerous wild beast is brought 
into existence, and others are no longer safe. In 
place of a normal man appears a suspicious, lower- 
ing and vengeful brute, quarrelsome and seeking 
conflict, regardless of all consequences. Such as 
he it is who sometimes kills when drunk, and let it 
be borne in mind that the type is not confined to the 
uneducated and uncouth. This is the more tragic 
side of drunkenness, the occasion when all spirit of 
fellowship and friendliness and sense of right has 
gone with conscience and the man becomes a tiger. 
In such a state he may commit murder as indiffer- 
ently as he would take another drink, and the law 



Strange and Senseless 245 

makes no distinction in his case when he is called 
upon to answer for his crime. Why should it? He 
knew before he took a drink what its effect might 
be. That made no difference to him! 

Gushing with love toward his fellow men, an 
easy victim of the guileful; a mere buffoon and 
fool, a thing to excite but ridicule or compassion; 
a terror murderously inclined — they are but vari- 
ations, all the result of a drink or more of alcohol. 
And yet men drink! 

How is it; how can it be? Why is it possible 
that the man made in God's image, the being given 
reasoning power supposedly sufficient to prevent 
him from incurring any danger with the conse- 
quences of facing which he is perfectly familiar, 
can take a drink containing alcohol ! 

No wonder that those who have never drank 
are distracted and perplexed. Why does anyone 
drink? The wife with the drunken husband won- 
ders in tears and asks the question. She cannot an- 
swer it; she can conceive of no possible reason for 
it. In her anxiety and bewilderment, she consults 
her friends, but they cannot aid her; she seeks the 
family doctor; he may hem and haw and consider 
and give utterance to generalities but, as a matter 
of fact, he can explain nothing. She appeals to th£ 
minister; he can sympathize with and seek to con^ 
sole her but he cannot tell her what she wants to, 
know. 



£46 Strange and Senseless 

And so it is, even among men of the world, those 
who should be capable, if any could be, of giving 
a solution of the insistent problem, the gravest ever 
known, of why men drink! No one of them can 
tell ; they know only that men do drink, under dif- 
fering conditions and varying circumstances, but 
what may be the definite cause they cannot explain. 
They have considered the matter long, but to no 
purpose. Even the man who drinks is in the 
dark. It may be that he questions himself pite- 
ously. , , 

"You know what effect upon you drink will have ; 
you know that it is destroying your health; you 
know that it is wrecking your fortune ; you know 
that it is bringing misery to others; you know that, 
time and again, it has made of you a fool, a worse 
than buffoon, a creature to be considered with aver- 
sion and contempt, an object to be laughed at, and 
that, following all this, you have suffered horribly 
from aching head and trembling nerves and nausea 
indescribable until the agony endured offset a thou- 
sand times the enjoyment of your brief exhilaration. 
Stand off and look at yourself! You know the 
shame, the remorse, the infinite humiliation. It is 
incomprehensible! Why did you drink and why 
should you ever drink again!" 

It does not follow that the man who drinks can 
answer his own wretched question. He, the slave 
of the alcoholic habit, may be seeking a reason with 
an anxiety and alarm and, possibly, an ignorance 



Strange and Senseless 247 

as great as that of others. No one can tell, defi- 
nitely and conclusively and in terms applying 
plainly to any case, why it is that human beings will 
partake of intoxicating drinks. Yet there is no 
deep mystery about it. No two personalities in the 
world are just the same, to be affected just alike 
by circumstances, in yielding to inclination or 
temptation. The fact but remains that alcohol, the 
most treacherous and illusive of all deadly things, 
claims everywhere its victims. 

The fact remains, too, obtruding and convincing, 
that all the world knows what the effect of drink- 
ing is and that those who suffer from it do so de- 
liberately and knowingly. The act is inexcusable. 
It implies — it cannot be otherwise — that drinking 
is evidence of wickedness or weakness. There are 
the man and the poison. Why should the man take 
poison; why does he take it? There is no answer 
and there cannot be. He should not take it. There 
should be no such question to ask! 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

COLUMBIA. 

In this book appear portraits of the fairest crea- 
ture in all the world, Columbia, the Goddess of Lib- 
erty, the poetic conception of the spirit of America, 
ever youthful, ever strong and bouyant and ever 
representative of what is best and of highest de- 
sire in the heart and aspirations of the Nation. 

No ordinary being is Columbia. She is not vain, 
nor frivolous, nor proud, but, in all history, none 
have surpassed her in magnificence of attire. Not 
the Queen of Sheba, not Cleopatra in her barge 
upon the Nile, not Elizabeth upon the Thames, 
wore garments of more splendor or shone amid 
surroundings more imposing. No extravagant, 
spoilt daughter of any modern multimillionaire 
has a wardrobe finer or more varied or is more re- 
gardful of appearance, for she never wears the 
same frock twice. True her dresses have a certain 
general resemblance to each other, for it is she 
herself who sets the fashion, and she has her fancy, 
but there is always a pleasing variation, however 
slight, following, it may be, some suggestion from 
one of the clever designers of whom she employs a 
host She has them in every country where are 

248 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 
The North and South are enlisted together in a cause where the same 
flag does for both of them. It is the cause of all the country 



Columbia 249 

masters of the brush, or pen, or pencil and, of course, 
according to their nationality, they have somewhat 
differing conceptions, which she graciously ac- 
cepts, requiring only an adherence to the usual 
ideal with all its rich originality combined with 
grand simplicity. And this adherence to the cus- 
tomary fascinating outline of the gown itself is an 
indication of no jealous spirit of exclusiveness ; it 
is no arrogance that has made the gown Columbia's 
own. Who else could wear it, for who else has 
such a figure! As to the details of the corsage, the 
lady has a fancy usually, that the golden breast- 
pieces be retained; but of jewels she is careless, 
needing none for her adornment, and preferring, 
as a rule, instead of the tiara her foreign artists 
often earnestly suggest, to wear the delightful little 
cap which so becomes her. Artistic, rich and very 
fetching is the garb of fair Columbia. 

But what are gowns and gewgaws ! It is the face 
that tells, and there is no other like Columbia's. 
Ten thousand artists have essayed to paint her 
portrait, but none has done her justice, so many 
are her charms and so elusive are they. As well seek 
to portray on canvas the wind and clover as they 
move together, or mingled sighs and laughter, or 
the twinkling of the very stars ! She is full of chang- 
ing moods, and all of them entrancing, and never 
before did lovely features so reveal the impulse. 
Consider the myriad pictures of her face with 



250 Columbia 

which the world is so familiar, portrayals by the 
greatest delineators of thought as expressed by the 
human countenance. How appealing are they all, 
yet how dissimilar! She is ever entrancing, ever 
changing; sometimes dignified and stately, the 
personification of all splendid and commanding 
womanhood; sometimes but sweet and piquant, 
as when she appears a figure in a lighter pageant 
of the nations ; sometimes strained of feature, weep- 
ing with bowed head, as when has come to her the 
knowledge of any of earth's great disasters, the 
quake, the plague or famine, the deaths from fire or 
flood, or the pitiless destruction and desolation of 
red war. Again, she stands in another attitude, 
thoughtful, questioning, earnest, as when a consid- 
eration of mighty policy may be involved, or, 
again, in other wise, more sternly, as when a great 
wrong is to be righted and a great reform secured, 
wrathful, earnest, splendid. So she exists, change- 
able, but with nothing trivial about her; even in 
her more girlish humors sedate and circumspect; 
in her graver moods, imposing, inspiring and some- 
times compelling. She has the reverence as she has 
the admiration of the world. 

Never had feminine entity so many adorers as 
Columbia, yet she is not a flirt. They say of one 
who attracts all men that she is "a man's woman," 
and of one to whom men are more indifferent but 
whom those of her own sex hold in affectionate 



Columbia 251 

regard that she is "a woman's woman." Columbia 
is both, and in her bosom exists the sweet instinct 
of maternity as well. She is fond of children. No 
wonder she attracts ! Between the two great oceans 
she has more than eighty million lovers, and hun- 
dreds of thousands of others scattered throughout 
the world. She is tenderly inclined toward them 
all, but none has all her heart. As a matter of fact, 
her affections are engaged. She belongs to Uncle 
Sam. 

And what sort of a personage must he be who 
can win and retain the affection of such a being? 
It must be admitted that, sometimes and in some 
respects, he seems hardly worthy of her. Columbia 
is perfect. She has her likes and dislikes and may 
occasionally have her fancies, but she has no weak- 
ness. Of Uncle Sam, it must be granted that he 
has his faults. One of the greatest and grandest of 
characters, in his way, he is assuredly. None any- 
where excels him. He towers above his fellows. 
He is not ostentatious in his garb nor manner. He 
did not win his sweetheart by his clothes or his 
charm of countenance, but by his strength of char- 
acter. He wears always the same old suit, and it 
is one which no tailor with any self-respect or 
pride in his honorable profession would admit to 
having made. The stripes in the trousers are too 
broad for taste, the color is too loud, and, some- 
times, they have the old-fashioned straps attached, 



252 Columbia 

passing under the insteps of the boots, to keep them 
down. When the straps are accidentally left off 
the trousers barely reach the ankle and the effect 
is not imposing. His vest is giddy and the long 
tails of his long coat flap anywhere, standing 
straight out and stiff as boards when he is after 
anyone in earnest. Likewise, he wears the bell- 
crowned beaver hat, now out of date for at least 
three-quarters of a century. No, Uncle Sam will 
never set the fashion, yet no one seems to mind it. 
He has a right to his clothes certainly; the world 
has become accustomed to them, and that makes all 
the difference. 

But, again, what are clothes? Uncle Sam is what 
he is, and that is something to be described in 
words beyond the commonplace. He is a world 
figure, and, in the march of nations, that old hat 
looms high. Never was being more imposing than 
Uncle Sam, never one stronger or more formidable, 
never one more full of earnest and lofty purpose. 
It is well; it is a blessing to humanity that he lives. 
He is changing the face of the earth; he is turn- 
ing millions of arid acres into teeming, food-giving 
fields ; he upholds his children and guides them as 
he may to a greater destiny; he looks abroad and 
where is need he succors, where are differences he 
arbitrates, and where is oppression his strong hand 
is swift to intervene. He is a giant among the 
doers of good deeds. 



Columbia 253 

But Uncle Sam is not infallible. None the less 
lovable may he be on that account, for he is 
human, but he has his faults and weaknesses. He 
is strenuous; he fears nothing; he seeks the best 
course, but sometimes he makes mistakes. He is 
bluff, sometimes forgetful and, worse than all, 
occasionally unseeing and apathetic. Then he is 
saved only by his great redeeming trait. In the 
end, he never fails to do as Columbia says, and 
there are times when she does more than plead! 

Columbia is aroused as she never was before and, 
though her eyes are moist, the light in them is kind- 
ling into what will soon be flame. She has looked 
over the land and seen the existence of that which 
she, the ever watchful and thoughtful, had scarcely 
comprehended before in its enormity. She has 
seen the greatest of nations gasping in the coils of 
a monster grown beyond all reasoning in the years 
while her gaze has been unheedingly averted. She 
is appalled and full of self-reproach. Her great 
heart has been stirred to its depths at the sight of 
the writhing helpless millions, and the growing 
light in her eyes is that of resolve, helpful, stern, 
uncompromising. No longer Columbia the beau- 
tiful, alone, she has suddenly become Columbia, 
the just and even the merciless, if need be. Well 
does she know what course to take; she knows to 
whom she shall appeal and what will be the con- 
sequences. The monster who is crushing and de- 



254 Columbia 

vouring may be huge and venomous, and unafraid 
as yet, but Columbia knows a hand with grip so 
ironlike that were it once clutched round the throat 
of the reptile there would follow r but unavailing 
twistings and contortions and then death. Col- 
umbia's eyes are turning to Uncle Sam. 

She knows, our mediator goddess, that her time 
has come for action, that with all her great heart 
and soul, she must give herself to preventing a con- 
tinuance of the foulest wrong existent since the 
world began, of the greatest cruelty ever perpe- 
trated since man began to live, of the most deadly 
evil she has witnessed since the hour of her dear 
birth. She will not falter. She has reflected, and 
she never turns from the course which she has 
determined is the wise and right and merciful one. 
She will plead if need be, but, if pleading alone 
will not avail, she will command, and be obeyed. 
There need be no fear concerning her. She cares 
not what the methods of the coiling and devouring 
monster be, or what its might. She will not rest 
while billions of dollars of the money which should 
clothe and feed the cold and hungry people are 
taken by the liquor interests, or while crime, in- 
sanity, pauperism and disease are made their por- 
tion. She will change, assuredly, the attitude of 
Uncle Sam, and he will regard the welfare of the 
millions so dependent on him. She will endure no 
longer the suffering of the men and women and 
the little children. And that is our Columbia! 



CHAPTER XXX. 

• COLUMBIA'S SMALL WARDS. 

The character of Columbia has, all too feebly, 
been portrayed. The second thought, the very 
spirit, the soul of the nation, as compared with the 
executive, Uncle Sam, she is as kindly and thought- 
ful as he is grim and strong. She is government 
humanized, and there is a loving materialism to 
her character as it is conceived by the great people 
for whom she stands as typifying what is aspired 
to in all the better and more enduring ways. Col- 
umbia is guardian of the future not less than of the 
present. One can well imagine what she would 
say to all the children, could they be gathered at 
her knee, regarding the one thing which, if not 
avoided, must have the most baneful influence on 
their future being. Very earnestly but very simply, 
she would say to them : 

"You know, children, that when you go into the 
garden or the fields there are some berries you 
must not eat, no matter how bright may be their 
colors, for if you should, they would poison you 
and you would die. You know, too, that there 
are some places you should not go near because there 
may be dangerous snakes there and should they bite 

255 



256 Columbia's Small Wards 

you something would go from their teeth into your 
blood and then you would die from the venom 
just as surely as from the poison of the berries. And 
it is of the most poisonous and venomous thing of 
all that I am going to tell you. 

First, it is necessary that you should know some- 
thing about your bodies, for your bodies hold your 
life and your mind, and those things are all there 
is to us. If the body is sick then the body feels pain 
and the mind suffers. If certain things happen so 
that the blood which, as you know, runs all through 
it, in what we call the arteries and veins, is not 
what it should be and does not give what it should 
to the body in the right way, then sickness comes 
and, it may be, death. Sometimes the sickness is 
nearly all in the part of the body we call the brain, 
and then the mind dies before the body, which is 
almost as bad as if both died together. So, you see 
that our health and happiness depend almost en- 
tirely upon how well we take care of our bodies 
and especially of the blood which runs through 
them. 

"I am going to say 'we' after this instead of 'you' 
in what I am saying, because it is more convenient 
and besides, because the bodies of grown people 
and children are alike in most ways. Now about 
the body. 

"You know already what we are like on the 
outside, how our legs and arms and faces appear 



Columbia's Small Wards 257 

and how we do things, and so it is about the inside 
of the body that I want to tell you. Of course, 
there will not be time now to tell all about the dif- 
ferent parts — that would take hours — and it is only 
necessary to say that each of them has its different 
work to do, that we may live and be well, and that 
each one of them is fed by the blood so that it will 
be strong enough for its task. Without being fed 
by blood, and good blood, the parts must become ill 
just as any of us would do if we did not have our 
regular meals of good food. You see, then, how 
everything depends on how well we take care of 
the blood to make it just what it should be. 

"The blood is made from what we eat and drink. 
Parts of the body, the stomach and the other parts 
which help it, make, together, a sort of machinery 
through which what we eat and drink passes, and 
this machinery takes out what it wants and makes 
blood of it. If it has the right kind of food and 
drink the machinery can make good blood; if if 
does not get the right kind it can make only bad 
blood. 

"The blood itself as it comes from the machinery 
and goes through the body in little streams to feed 
the- different parts is made up of what we call red 
and white 'corpuscles,' though they look altogether 
red, but that does not matter; it is sufficient that 
the blood supplies the food for all the body and 
that the body is being worn out and made over again 



258 Columbia's Small Wards 

all the time as the fed organs of the body do their 
work. We are made up of tiny cells which we cast 
off but which were once alive. Every time we 
wash our hands we rub away millions of the tiny 
skin cells which have gradually grown from the 
deeper layers of the skin, being pushed outward 
as new cells were formed beneath them. You know 
how what we call a microscope can magnify many 
thousand times, and looking through one, we can 
see clearly that this covering, the outside of which 
we rub off, is made of these changed cells which 
were once alive. So the whole body is cast off 
in time in one way or another. We are changing 
all the time and all is done because of the blood 
which gives the food to work on. Theje is one 
very pretty experiment which shows this. 

"Part of the body consists of nerves which ex- 
tend through it and which are like telegraph wires 
carrying word to the brain and from the brain tell- 
ing any part of the body what to do. If the brain 
wants more blood itself, it sends for it, and this is 
the experiment I just spoke of : Suppose we take a 
man and lay him on a delicately balanced table, 
and place him so that the table lies quite flat and 
not tilted up at either end. Then, when we have 
got this right, let us give him a difficult sum to 
do in his head. No sooner has he begun to work it 
out than the end of the table where his head is be- 
gins to fall. The reason is that the blood has gone 



Columbia's Small Wards 259 

to his head and makes him heavier there and weighs 
down that end of the table. The brain needed it 
and sent for it to give it strength to do the sum. 
Suppose, though, that this blood sent for as food 
had contained poison. What would have happened 
to the brain? Not only might it have been unable 
to do the sum itself, but it might not have been ca- 
pable of answering the nerve messages from other 
parts of the body telling them what to do in an- 
swer to their requests, for the brain directs the 
whole body. 

"So you see what the blood does; you see how 
the whole body and the mind depend upon the 
blood and that whether the blood is good or bad 
depends upon the kind of food and drink we give 
it. When we eat poisonous berries the poison gets 
into the blood through the stomach and kills us; 
when one of us is bitten by a venomous snake the 
venom goes directly into the blood from the snake's 
fangs and so may kill a little more quickly. The 
poison taken into the stomach which kills more 
people every year than all other poisons together 
is called alcohol. 

"Alcohol is in many fruits and grains which are 
good to eat, as in grapes and other fruits and in 
wheat and barley and other grains, but unless it is 
extracted from them in a certain way it is harm- 
less. You would hardly think that any one would 
extract it in that way, and then induce people to 



260 Columbia's Small Wards 

drink it, but, though it seems wicked and some- 
thing incredible, it is so. Almost since the world 
began there have been people who would commit 
even murder for money, and it is for the sake of 
getting money that these people now put up great 
buildings and use the yeast plant, which is a kind 
of microbe or germ, and machinery and many 
processes for getting alcohol out of the fruits and 
grains. This alcohol they make into wine and 
whiskey and beer, as they are called, and other 
drinks, so that people may be led to take them into 
their stomachs, but they are poison just the same as 
if there had been no attempt to make them at- 
tractive. Alcohol is a poison and nothing else and, 
taken into the stomach, it goes into the blood, and 
changes it so that it is bad, just as another poison 
does, though it may not act as swiftly or in just 
the same way, and the result of the bad blood upon 
the body and mind is what I have already told you. 
The parts of the body are not fed as they should be, 
and terrible disease or death comes to the person 
who is foolish enough to drink. Sometimes it is 
one part of the body which is killed first, some- 
times another before the body dies, but, no matter 
in which way, the whole thing is as horrible as 
it can be. Think of it, over two hundred thousand 
people are killed by this poison every year in this 
country alone, and, besides these, no one can tell 
how many tens of thousands are killed by other 



Columbia's Small Wards 261 

diseases, such as that caused by the microbe of 
consumption, which can eat away the lungs a great 
deal more readily when there is some alcohol in 
the body. Besides consumption, there are many 
other diseases which can kill the body easily when 
it contains alcohol even if it be not yet quite enough 
to kill of itself. 

"You may ask if all grown people do not know 
already that alcohol is a poison, and why, if they 
do, they are so foolish as to swallow it and let it 
get into their stomachs and then into their blood and 
so kill their brains or their bodies. It is not sur- 
prising that you ask the question and it is not an 
easy one to answer in a way that children will un- 
derstand. I can only say that human beings are 
not always very strong in resisting temptation, and 
that the temptation to any one to drink alcohol for 
the first time comes generally from following un- 
thinkingly a bad custom which grew up a great 
many hundred years ago. The taking of the first 
drink of the poison may come from one of many 
causes but it is easy to tell why one who has begun 
to drink it will keep on doing so. Alcohol has the 
power to induce a craving of the mind and body 
that can be satisfied only by taking more of itself. 
The person who has taken much alcohol is like 
one whose hands are tied and who is being dragged 
along by a rope around his neck. He may know 
that he is being dragged along to die, but he can- 



262 Columbia's Small Wards 

not help himself. That is why people who have 
drunk alcohol at all, keep on doing so. 

"I might tell you much more, children, of what 
this awful poison does, but there are some things 
you might not understand. I could tell you of the 
fearful sights in the insane asylums and the filled 
prisons and of the thousands of millions of dollars 
which the people who make and sell the alcohol 
take away from those who might clothe and feed 
all their children well, had they not paid out the 
money for something to hurt them. You will 
understand all that as you get older. 

"But this, dear children, do not forget. Never, 
never, in all your lives, when you are grown up, 
take a drink containing any of this poison alcohol 
of which I have told you. Try to keep all others 
from drinking any of it. In that way you will 
be happiest and in that way you can do the most 
good!" 

That is what Columbia would say to the little 
children, were they all gathered at her knee. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE FATHERS AND MOTHERS. 

More grave would be the expression on the face 
of Columbia if, instead of talking to the children 
of the country, she were addressing the parents, 
for she would have before her those more com- 
prehending and responsible. Very earnestly, even 
passionately, might she reason with them in ex- 
planation of all that devolves upon them as a mat- 
ter of right and duty. She would not be hesitant 
of words. 

"You cannot consider too seriously," she would 
say, "the nature of the loving duty imposed upon 
you all. If you are good fathers and mothers and 
good citizens you cannot avoid the responsibility. 
You have children ; you brought other beings into 
the world ; they were not consulted ; they are help- 
less things whose future is largely to be determined 
by your course toward them, and it is the law alike 
of God and man that you do all in your power to 
promote their future welfare. To this you should 
be impelled by natural affection and the common 
human instinct. You must reason as to what you 
can do which will be best for them and you must 
do it. There must be few indeed among you who 

263 



264 Fathers and Mothers 

do not feel and know that this is true. Your im- 
pulse and your reason tell you so. 

"And, it is not the children alone who are con- 
cerned. You know that upon them may depend 
the measure of your own later happiness. The 
years pass and age is coming on and the old may be 
compelled to lean upon the offspring in their 
prime. For your own sake, do you not want that 
prime to be a splendid thing, one where love and 
strength are at your service? Are not even a por- 
tion of your selfish interests centered in your chil- 
dren? For your own sake, then, must you not 
do what is also duty? As you guide them they will 
grow. 

"But, aside from the children and you there are 
others to be considered. You are part of society 
and it is your obligation, as far as may be within 
your power, to add to society good citizens. You! 
have no right to give bad ones. If you have in 
you any spark of patriotism of the broader kind 
you must feel that you should rear defenders for 
me, and, finally, if you believe in God and in a 
future life, assuredly you should lead your chil- 
dren toward such a course of life that the here- 
after will be good for them. Oh, there are reasons 
enough, simple, overpowering and compelling rea- 
sons, why you should guide your children well I 

"The minds and bodies of the children are being 
molded now for the men and women they will be 



Fathers and Mothers 265 

and, in some respects, even when greater under- 
standing comes to them, there will never again be 
such an opportunity as now to do them good by; 
teaching. Their plastic minds receive in early 
youth deeper impressions and more lasting ones 
than can be made in early manhood and woman- 
hood. The child never forgets what it has learned 
before its world grew large and varied, and in this 
early period is the time to produce upon its mind 
impressions and convictions which will be lasting, 
to teach it the difference between what is harmless 
and what is to be feared, the difference between the 
dove and rattlesnake, above all to teach about 
the rattlesnake, that is to point out what are the 
greatest dangers in the world and how they can 
be avoided. This you must teach your children 
in their impressionable and fact-retaining years. 
So will you accomplish most good for them, for 
yourselves and for the world. 

"Naturally, you will teach your children to be 
honest and upright. You will teach them, for in- 
stance, not to steal. You will explain to them that 
it is wrong to steal, not only because it says so in the 
Bible but in the laws of men, and you will make it 
clear, too, that it is most unwise to steal, because a 
convicted thief is punished. He has violated the 
law. You will make it plain that the violation of 
laws of any sort must be followed by retribution, 
and it is your duty to fix deeply in the mind of the 



266 Fathers and Mothers 

child that this applies to a law of nature as much 
as to any other. 

"Impress deeply, make it so plain that it cannot 
be misunderstood, reiterate until sunken and ce- 
mented in the memory the facts as to all connected 
with a great danger to be avoided in the future, 
and you will have so armored your child that the 
chance of hurt, when that danger threatens in man- 
hood or in womanhood, will have been reduced to 
next to nothing. And, as you know, at this age, in 
this hour, and in this country there exists one danger 
to the growing human being overtopping and 
overshadowing all the others. Is there any ques- 
tion as to what you should do if you have at heart 
the future welfare of the child ; is there ajiy doubt 
as to the nature of your responsibility! 

"The greatest danger threatening the future of a 
child in this country, under present conditions, is 
that the child may at some time in life become 
addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks. There 
is no disputing the fact; the statistics show it and 
evidence in confirmation exists on every side. 
There is, practically, no ground for a discussion of 
the subject. The greatest peril to the future hap- 
piness and health and even life of the youth of the 
land lies in what is awaiting them from the manu- 
facture and sale of alcoholic beverages. There is 
nothing in the range of teaching a child what it 
should shun in future life, to be compared with the 



Fathers and Mothers 26? 

necessity of impressing it with the dread of alco- 
holic stimulants. Upon all parents rests the duty, 
serious and unavoidable! 

"You know the truth. Do you want any one of 
your children growing toward manhood or woman- 
hood to be, at some time, among one of the more 
than two hundred thousand beings who die from 
alcoholism each year in the United States? Can 
you imagine any one of them grown to maturity, 
a criminal, because of the influence upon character 
and of the associations and temptations drink in- 
volves, one of the hard-faced host keeping the lock- 
step in our prisons? Can you conceive of a time 
when one of your little ones, later apparently in 
the prime of life will be snuffed out as a candle 
light is by some disease which might have been 
easily resisted by a system not weakened by in- 
dulgence? Can you, by any flight of miserable 
fancy, conceive some future day when another of 
your brood may become a gibbering inmate of an 
insane asylum? Can you dream of the time when 
any one of the loved group will be a pauper, cold 
and hungry, it may be, because of the evil which 
has become so general? These things, or any one of 
them, are hard to conceive of now, but one or all 
are possible, as conditions are, yet, one and all, 
these horrors may be almost surely averted if you 
will but rear your children, as you should, with 
the knowledge and in the fear of what is the most 



268 Fathers and Mothers 

brooding danger in the world. If you have a 
parent's love, if you have any sense of the wise and 
close guardianship and loving regard for the wel- 
fare of a child which are a parent's obligation, you 
will spare no effort; you will have your children 
grow up, warned by all the means by which the 
elder human mind can affect the younger against 
the greatest peril in their lives among those they 
are absolutely certain to encounter. Their great- 
est hazard implies the doing thoroughly the great- 
est present work in their behalf. 

"What object in life is more worth living for 
than the well-being of those born to you? All na- 
ture is devoted to bringing forth and nourishing. 
The she-wolf guards her young at the sacrifice of 
her own life, if need be. Shall a human being be 
less solicitous for the safety of the young with souls 
than is the she-wolf in protecting the creatures she 
has suckled? What an advantage you have over 
the defending wild thing ! She may not know what 
stronger beast of prey is seeking opportunity or 
when the hounds are on her trail, but you are well-* 
informed. You know where the monster lurks who 
would destroy your young and know how he 
attacks. There can be no excuse, if they are not 
safeguarded beyond all hazard while you rear them, 
or taught how to escape the destroyer when they 
leave you to face alone the perils of the world. 
Safe should they be as young lions, when they go 



Fathers and Mothers 269 

forth from the family group, trained and wise and 
strong. 

"Everything — all the circumstances of life — 
should appeal to you to shield and train your chil- 
dren in the one great respect I have defined. Upon 
the parents of today depends as much the well-be- 
ing of the nation as a whole as does that of the chil- 
dren separately. The emergency is one not for you 
and those dear to you alone, but one of import in 
history. With the new teaching may be brought 
the new life. Time was when all a child might 
learn for future self-protection and safety was the 
puny use of club or bow or to climb into the shel- 
tering branches of the trees, to escape the beasts of 
prey, fierce and abundant and ever hunting. Times 
and conditions have changed, the ancient ravening 
beasts are gone and men are rulers of the earth, but 
danger still exists, and the untaught and, because 
untaught, unwary, are in peril great as ever awaited 
the unconscious wanderer in the forest where 
lurked the huge cave bear, or sabre-tooth, the tiger, 
to whom a man was scarce a satisfying meal. The 
quality of the perils and evils threatening humanity 
has changed constantly with the growth of mind, 
the conquest of some of the powers of nature and 
the greater realization of what it is we must avoid 
or struggle with, but perils and evils attend us still, 
one of them greater than has ever before existed 
or made life uncertain since what we know 



270 Fathers and Mothers 

of history began. Now men prey upon each other, 
and those who prey have devised a means of com- 
passing the destruction of their fellows more de- 
ceptive and deadly and far-extending than the 
world has ever known. You know what it is ; you 
know how you may enable your children to escape 
it and to equip and safeguard them, you cannot be- 
gin too soon. As the athlete who will some day 
engage in mighty wrestling must be trained from 
youth, that his muscles may be so developed as to 
give him victory, so must the child be trained in 
mind until when the time comes he can endure the 
test of forcing his way unscathed through a world 
where, as we now, live, he will be assailed by alco- 
hol at all times and on every side. If you, the 
parents, fail in this, you will be as guilty as if you 
sent your grown children unarmored and unarmed 
into any desert where wild beasts yet exist. 

"But you will not fail ! You have learned much 
in recent years and I know that you will heed my 
words. Not so easy victims to the monster who 
awaits them will be those of the growing genera- 
tion as were the unwarned, and unsuspecting beings 
of the past, who were untaught as little children. 
You will do your duty by your own, else yours with 
theirs will be the suffering and yours the negli- 
gence and crime. May I not count upon you!" 

Thus might Columbia, in her deep solicitude, 
well reason with the parents. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

FIGURES THAT TELL. 

The total wealth produced each year in the 
United States is something unparalleled in the his- 
tory of the world. As indicated by the last census, 
the production in the year 1900 was $18,659,000,- 
000, and the increase at the present time is some- 
thing the magnitude of which can be revealed only 
when the cansus of 1910 is taken. Data of recent 
date may not be had from the Internal Revenue De- 
partment ; but those of past years have been collated 
and such showing made as casts new light upon the 
cost of the liquor traffic. Especially striking and 
convincing are absolute figures from the last census 
and other reports and comparisons made in the an- 
nual civic number of The Chautauquan for 1908: 

"The total amount of wealth produced in the 
census year 1900 from the various sources of agri- 
culture, mining, manufactures, transportation, and 
trade, so far as it can be estimated, was $18,659,- 
000,000. During the same year the liquor traffic 
cost $1,171,000,000, or an average of about one 
dollar for every sixteen produced. This propor- 
tion holds practically the same for other years. The 
total wealth production in 1906 was approximately 
$24,000,000,000 and the liquor traffic cost $1,607,- 

271 



272 Figures That Tell 

FOREIGN MISSIONS- „$ 3,000,000 

e 

BRICIS „ , 35,000,000 

CHURCHES.... «- 165,000,000 

POTATOES .30^,000,000 



SILK GOODS _ £30,000,000 



FURNITURE - JW5\00O,00O 



SUGAR &, MOLASSES.. _ ^9^,000,000 



PUBLIC EOUCATION 310,000,000 



FLOUR ... 43^,000,000 



BOOTS h, SHOES 435,000,000 



WOOLEN & WORSTED _ CrOODS .460,000,000 



COTTON GOODS , -. 6^0,000,000 



LUMBER 6B5\000,O0O 



PRINTING &, PUBLISHING. 7*5.000,000 



TOBACCO — _.__ * - 800,000,000 

IRON & STEEL 1,000,000,000 



MEAT 1,500,000,000 

INTOXICATING- LIQUORS. 1,610, 000,000 

GOVERNMENT REVENUES FROM LIQUORS. 



Figures That Tell 273 

000,000 or about one dollar in fifteen produced. 
The accompanying diagram shows the relative and 
absolute national cost of a number of leading neces- 
sities compared with intoxicants for the year 1906. 

WHERE OUR MONEY GOES. 

"What does the drink traffic pay in exchange for 
this drain upon the wealth of the nation? There 
are the customs and internal revenues collected by 
the Federal Government, which in 1906 amounted 
to $205,247,000. 

"The latest figures at hand for state and local 
revenues from the traffic are from the census of 
1890. They amounted that year to $24,786,496, 
which was 2.75 per cent, of the total retail traffic 
of the year. The same percentage in 1906 would 
bring this state and local income from the saloons 
up to $33,393,000. On this basis the total national, 
state, and local returns from the traffic for the fiscal 
year 1906 were approximately $238,640,000 or 15^2 
per cent, of the gross retail cost of the traffic. Out 
of this must come the cost of collecting these rev- 
enues, amounting to some $4,000,000. The traffic, 
therefore, returns directly about 15 per cent, of its 
total receipts. 

"Consider now the relation of the traffic to the 
farmer. The production of distilled and malt 
liquors makes a heavy demand upon the farmer for 



274 Figures That Tell 

grain and other raw materials. The internal rev- 
enue report for the year ended June 30, 1907, shows 
that over 57 per cent, of the barley crop raised in 
1906, and nearly 19 per cent, of the rye crop went 
into the breweries and distilleries. Grains to the 
total farm value of $54,434,427 were demanded 
from the farmer in the fiscal year 1907. Nearly all 
the hop crop and molasses equivalent to the entire 
home production of the nation, besides large quan- 
tities of grapes and other fruit, are also required for 
the production of liquors. 

"This is a strong statement, if taken at its face 
value, but there are other considerations. The total 
demand upon the farmers by the distilleries and 
breweries is for but a very small part of the farmer's 
total products. Take the grain crop alone for 1906 
as shown in the following table, which covers the 
materials used in producing over 94 per cent, of 
all our home manufactured intoxicants : 

GRAINS USED TO MAKE LIQUORS. 

Grains. Total crop 1906. Used for liquors, 1907. 

Bushels. Bushels. *Per cent. 

Barley 178,916,484 102,088,016 5706 

Rye 33.374.833 6,250,898 18.73 

Wheat 735,260,970 21,452 .003 

Corn 2,927,416,091 23.474.S°9 ,8 ° 

Oats 964,904,522 17, 3 01 •° 02 

Total 4,839,872,900 131,852,176 2.73 

*Per cent, of total crop. 

"Cut out the liquor traffic and only the barley and 
rye farmers would be able to detect any practical 



Figures That Tell 



275 



difference in the grain markets. Even with barley 
and rye included the liquor industry demands less 
than three per cent, of the total crop of these five 
grains. There is yet another side to this question 
of the farmer that will be taken up in connection 
with the wage earners of the breweries and dis- 
tilleries. 

Of a grain crop of 4,340,000,000 bushels, but 




13*. 000,000 Bu. 



4,340,000,000 Bu. 



132,000,000 bushels are used in the production of 
liquor — one thirty-seventh of the whole. 

"The production of intoxicants gives employ- 
ment to a large number of working men. The latest 
figures are for the census of 1905. If the wine in- 
dustry be estimated to include all the products of 
the smaller establishments, the total number of 
workers engaged in making intoxicants will reach 



276 Figures That Tell 

about 60,000 and their yearly wages will total over 
$40,000,000. To these should be added some thou- 
sands of workers employed in cooperage, bottling, 
etc., whose products are demanded for the liquor 
industry. What effect upon this army of working 
men would result from the closing of the breweries, 
distilleries and wineries? 

In the liquor industries 59,233 workmen em- 



Ji 




Sd.Xtt 406,fc!4 

ployed in the creation of a product valued at 
$1,400,000,000. In other industries, for the crea- 
tion of a product of equal value 406,214 workmen 
necessary — a ratio of one to more than six. 

"The 1905 census may suggest an answer. The 
consumption of domestic liquors that year amounted 
at retail to a little over $1,400,000,000. In the table 
that follows are shown the number of men em- 



Figures That Tell 



277 



ployed, the wages they received, and the raw ma- 
terials used in making these liquors : 



COMPARISONS BETWEEN LIQUOR AND OTHER INDUSTRIES. 

Manufactures. Workers. Wages. Raw Materials. 

Distilled spirits. . . 5,355 $2,657,025 $25,625,858 

Malt liquors , 48,139 34.542,897 74,911,619 

Wines 5,739 3,004,662 17,080,182 

Total intoxicants 59.233 40,204,584 117,617,659 

♦All other industries 406,214 198,278,986 625,333,479 

Difference 346,981 $158,074,402 $507,715,820 



,*&*»'•* 




-r-fi^jflW 



Z35,*3£ 



i,*SO.€67 



*The figures as to "all other industries" show the 
number of workers, the wages paid and the raw 
materials demanded in making all manufactures ex- 
cept liquors to the retail value of $1,400,000,000 
which is also the estimated retail value of the in- 
toxicants produced. 

The creation of liquors valued at $1,400,000,000 
makes use of the grain produced by 235,235 farm- 
ers. In other industries a product of equal value re- 



278 Figures That Tell 

quires the crops produced by 1,250,667 farmers — 
a ratio of one to more than five. 

"The table makes very striking comparisons. 
Take, for example, the number of workers em- 
ployed. The manufacture of $1,400,000,000 of 
liquor requires 59,233 workers per year. But the 
same retail value of all other manufactures besides 
liquor gives employment to 406,214 workers. In 
other words, if the $1,400,000,000 spent in 1905 for 
drink had been used instead for other manufactures 
there would have been employment for 346,981 
more workers than were actually at work making 
intoxicants. And these men would have received 
$158,074,402 additional wages. 

"Nor is this all. The raw materials used in mak- 
ing these liquors amounted to $117,617,659. Had 
the $1,400,000,000 been spent in manufactures other 
than drink the raw materials demanded of the 
farmer would have been $625,333,479. So that the 
farmer would have profited by the difference or 
?507,7i5,820. 

"In 1900 the average value of farm products per 
farm worker was $359. Since that time farm 
products have risen in value. At $500 per farm 
worker the raw materials demanded of the farmer 
for the production of intoxicants in 1905 gave em- 
ployment to 235,235 farmers. Had the drink 
money been spent for other manufacturers instead, 
the raw materials demanded would have employed 



Figures That Tell 279 

1,250,667 farmers. That is, 1,015,432 more farmers 
would have found employment. Had the nation 
spent its money for more comforts and necessities in 
1905 instead of intoxicants, there would therefore 
have been work for 346,981 more people in the fac- 
tories and for 1,015,432 more farmers to supply the 
raw materials. This is a total of 1,362,413 more 
workers that would have had employment. Such 
results as these seem almost incredible. But they 
are based on most conservative estimates from 
official figures. Following the same facts, the 
$1,600,000,000 spent in 1906 for intoxicants, if 
spent instead for necessities, comforts, and luxuries 
for the family, would have given employment to 
over 1,500,000 more people in the factory and on 
the farm. And this, apart from any consideration 
of the advantages to the homes from better use of 
this money. From the purely economic point of 
view, therefore, the liquor traffic cannot stand the 
test." 

And this result from the liquor traffic considered 
only materially and selfishly. What an illustration 
as to the degree of intelligence of a people! What 
a comment on the policy of a government! 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

MORE ASTONISHING DATA. 

If the dawn be breaking — as it is — in the United 
States, it will largely be because of the stern elo- 
quence of figures. There is enlightenment. The 
nation is beginning to recognize the extent of its 
present frightful suffering and increasing peril. 
Men are learning what alcohol costs the world, and 
the result is an uprising which will end with vic- 
tory. The results to be attained are too vast to 
allow of faltering or the adoption of any other than 
an intelligent, unflagging, and ever-aggressive 
policy. By States, the re-enforcement of-the army 
of right and reform and progress is coming in, and 
the enemy, long, as it thought, so impregnably 
fortressed that its sentinels but laughed from the 
ramparts, is becoming alarmed and active. Out- 
posts have been carried on all sides ; the walls have 
breaches in them made by such States as have acted 
for themselves; there remains but the capture of 
the citadel. The citadel is the distorted law which 
enables the issuance of a license for the manufac- 
ture or sale of alcohol to any man or woman any- 
where, criminal or not, and it is commanded by 
Uncle Sam in person. It must fall. Uncle Sam 
must abandon the insolent enemy with which he 

280 



More Astonishing Data 281 

has strangely allied himself, and come over to his 
own / with whom alone his fortunes lie. He will 
come — if not of his own impulse, then with the ap- 
plication of a more or less gentle force on the part 
of his children. These are war times! 

The great majority of the people of the United 
States have come to a forceful understanding of the 
nature and extent of the greatest of existing evils, 
and are going to remedy it. They have the will 
and the power. It would be folly were they not to 
exercise both. Imagine what the consequences of 
such action will be, in a material way alone. 

The drink bill of the United States in 1906, from 
the latest closest estimates, made from the best 
available figures, and here given more in detail 
than elsewhere, reached the enormous sum of 
$1,607,028,346. That is, this tremendous amount 
of money was paid to retailers. In 1900 it was 
about $1,171,000,000. Mark the increase. Now, 
disregarding the effect of the liquor upon those 
who consumed it, consider what might have been 
done with this large sum of money, worse than 
thrown away, had it, instead, been saved and put to 
its legitimate uses. As shown elsewhere, the total 
production of wealth in the United States was 
about $24,000,000,000; so that about one dollar in 
fifteen was not merely wasted, but was used in pro- 
motion of the increase of crime, disease, and pov- 
erty. But the general figures are not the only ones. 



282 More Astonishing Data 

Let us consider what liquor costs in a single 
county in one State. Relatively speaking, the con- 
ditions in one State, where the consumption of 
liquor is untrammeled, are the same as those in an- 
other where similar laws prevail, and the same 
thing may be said of the large cities. The drink 
bill of New York City in one year is estimated at 
about $365,000,000, or nearly a million dollars 
daily. It is practically the same, in proportion to 
population, in Chicago or any other of the great 
centres of population. Counties may suffer with 
the cities. Take, for instance, Cook County, Illi- 
nois, in which Chicago is situated, and it must be 
understood that the data here given apply not to 
the city at all, but to the county outside. For the 
city itself, they would be far more appalling in 
another way. 

Estimates made recently by a careful statistician, 
Mr. John F. Cunneen, show that of the 
$10,500,000, expended by the State of Illinois for 
one year, at least $3,000,000 of the expense is 
caused by caring for the criminality, delinquency, 
feeble-mindedness, pauperism and insanity brought 
on directly or indirectly by the liquor traffic. This 
means an expense of sixty cents for each person in 
the state. Cook County's share of this state expense 
was at least $1,200,000. 

Of the $8,460,601 for expenses appropriated by 
Cook County at least $3,000,000 was made neces- 



More Astonishing Data 283 

sary in caring for the criminality, delinquency, de- 
pendency, pauperism, accidents and insanity 
brought on directly or indirectly by the liquor 
traffic. 

At least $4,000,000 of the $23,000,000 annual ex- 
pense of the city of Chicago is caused directly or 
indirectly by the liquor traffic. 

The summary is as follows : 

County's share of state expense due to 

drink $1,200,000 

County expense due to drink 3,000,000 

Chicago City expense due to drink. . . . 4,000,000 

Total $8,200,000 

License fees paid by saloons 7,400,000 

Direct loss to County on account of the 
liquor traffic $ 800,000 

In addition there is the loss to the people of the 
money paid to saloons, which amounts each year to 
at least $55,000,000. 

Then there is the loss to the community of the 
unproductive labor of those engaged in the liquor 
traffic. They add nothing to the wealth of the com- 
munity. On the contrary, they live upon the 
wealth of the people. If engaged at productive 
labor the 15,000 persons engaged in the liquor 
traffic in Cook County would be worth to the com- 



284 More Astonishing Data 

munity at a reasonable production each day, 
$75,000, or $22,500,000 for a year of three hundred 
working days. 

Then, again there is an annual loss of at least 
$10,000,000, due to accidents, mistakes, sickness 
and loss of employment caused by drink. 

SUMMARY. 

Loss to Cook County on account of ex- 
pense of crime, pauperism and in- 
sanity due to saloons $ 8,200,000 

Cook County's annual drink bill 55,000,000 

Loss through unproductive labor of 

those engaged in the liquor traffic. . 22,500,000 

Loss due to accidents, mistakes, sick- 
ness and loss of employment, caused 
by drink 10,000,000 

Total $95,700,000 

License fees paid by saloons 7,400,000 

Net loss $88,300,000 

This is a consideration of the loss merely in dol- 
lars and to the county as a whole. How far ex- 
ceeding it must have been the loss to those who 
consumed the liquor. Not only this, but the show- 
ing made does not indicate how directly the 
pauperism and insanity are due to liquor, though 
the sufferers themselves may be innocent. Take 



More Astonishing Data 285 

two cases at random — one a poor old woman in the 
Cook County Infirmary, who was questioned. She 
had been supported by a son until he began to 
drink. Then he abandoned her, and she was driven 
to the poorhouse. A case, taken equally at random, 
is that of an inmate of the Cook County Insane 
Asylum — an attractive young woman. She took 
the risk of marrying a drinking man, loving him, 
and expecting to reform him. She failed. Her 
husband abused and neglected her; and, under 
such treatment, her mind gave way. All was the 
result of drink. 

Here are some facts about Cook County records 
for 1908: 

Number of inquests in Cook County, 

1908 , 4,214 

Number of suicides s 535 

Number of homicides ..-.., 171 

Number of jurors (grand and petit) 13,978 

Cost of jury service $248,000 

Number of arrests made 63,132 

The following are comments in the inaugural 
address of William Busse, president of Board of 
the County Commissioners: 

"The increase of inmates of our charitable insti- 
tutions is exceeding the natural growth of the pop- 
ulation and each year places a heavier burden on 
the financial resources of the county." 



286 More Astonishing Data 

"The insane asylum is so overcrowded that a 
large number of inmates have been sleeping on the 
floor." 

"Alcohol patients must be cared for by the 
county, but the city receives the saloon license 
revenue." 

"The evil of wife-desertion is increasing. It has 
become a common thing for husbands to abandon 
their wives and children, who frequently become 
county charges." 

The figures given above show some of the direct 
effects of drink, including only a few of its trag- 
edies. Their effect, in a thousand miserable ways, 
cannot possibly be estimated. 

Following is a partial summary of the work per- 
formed by the Department of Poor Relief for the 
year ending November 30, 1908 : 

Families given relief 12,461 

Number of persons comprising these fam- 
ilies 53^51 

Persons placed in infirmary and consump- 
tion hospital 2,201 

Cases given medical aid in homes, at dis- 
pensary, county jail and juvenile deten- 
tion home r 9*078 

Total number admitted to Cook County 

Hospital 30,037 

Paid for wines and liquors at County Hos- 
pital $970.65 



More Astonishing Data 287 

Number of insane cases disposed of ;i,666 

Total number of insane of Cook County in 

Cook County and State insane asylums. . 4,806 

Number of hearings in juvenile court 5,667 

New cases 2,959 

In the hospital, in addition to the mass whose ad- 
mission was caused by liquor-induced disease, 259 
cases were treated for alcoholism directly; and, of 
these, 30 could not be saved, even for the moment. 

But where all these records have their tremen- 
dous significance is in their evidence of the amaz- 
ing folly of the General Government from a mone- 
tary point of view. Consider the appalling show- 
ing for a single county in one of the States — a loss 
of $88,300,000 from the issuance of licenses for the 
sale of liquor. Consider the figures, $1,607,000,- 
coo taken from the nation's wealth, and squandered 
for intoxicants, with the return of only a petty 
$205,247,000, for licenses, in the form of tax re- 
ceipts. A boy of twelve should be a better financier 
than complacent Uncle Sam. He is no fit steward. 
He is squandering the fortunes of the people. 

More, far more, than the gross deficit as between 
receipts and expenditures in connection with the 
traffic in licenses, is the loss which comes in another 
way. There are the non-producers, the more than 
sixty to eighty thousand men engaged in making 
drinks from alcohol; there are the tens of thousands 
of parasites, the saloonkeepers and barkeepers and 



288 More Astonishing Data 

other attendants at the drinking places; there are 
the wasted food grains — wheat, corn, and barley — 
and the hops and grapes and sugar, converted into 
alcohol. Suppose, instead of being bloodsuckers 
on the community, the hosts engaged in the manu- 
facture and sale of liquors were to become produc- 
ers, adding to the wealth of the country instead of 
diminishing it each year on such an enormous scale, 
and that to this were added what might be saved to 
the people for food in all the millions of bushels of 
wasted grain and other products of the soil, what 
a different showing, one indicating such prosperity 
for a nation as never was known before in the 
world's history. It is the American's fortunate in- 
heritance. He has a right to its full enjoyment; but 
he does not get it. His birthright has been sold for 
a petty license fee and his vast fortune is being 
squandered. Never has been an evil to equal this 
in the history of governments, never before a people 
more servile and enduring. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE SALOON-KEEPER'S POSITION. 

It must not be assumed that all saloon-keepers 
are utterly depraved. Some among them are sober 
citizens and good husbands and fathers, and may 
in some cases think themselves fully justified in 
the traffic in drink, into which they may have been 
led by untoward circumstances. The evil, after 
all, can hardly be considered so much in these 
agents as is in those who supply them what they 
sell, who manufacture and distribute what is an 
evil thing in the community. If there were no dis- 
tillers and brewers there would be no saloon- 
keepers. 

Still, the saloon-keeper has not in fact, and 
should not have, the same standing as other men. 
The business in which he is engaged is not for good. 
He may say, "If I do not sell liquor, other people 
will." The answer to him should be, "What of 
that? It may be that other people will sell liquor. 
It may be, also, that they will rob and commit mur- 
der if you do not. That will not lessen the degree 
of your responsibility for what you are doing, nor 
your eventual retribution. Your wife and children 
may be well fed and clad; but you, indirectly, are 
clothing other women and children in ragged gar- 

289 



290 {The Saloon Keeper's Position 

ments, and, it may be, starving some of them. The 
whole thing is wrong. Furthermore, how about 
the standing of your family? Is it pleasant for 
your children that their father's occupation is 
known to their schoolmates? What place does a 
barkeeper hold in society ?" 

It is true that saloon-keepers do not sell strong 
drink to a man simply for the sake of destroying 
him. They give him what kills because they think 
that is the way by which they can get his money. 
They do not desire, on their own account, to ruin 
his character, take away his property, break his 
wife's heart, and beggar and starve his children. 
Their object is only to get the man's money, and 
they do these things because that seems to them the 
shortest way. Yet it is the price of blood. The 
seller of spirits, from the most petty grocer, the 
proprietor of the so-called drug store or the saloon 
or buffet to the most extensive brewer or distiller, 
is responsible, not only for gratifying the appetite 
for spirits, but for creating that unnatural appetite; 
not only for supplying the drunkard with the fuel 
of his vices, but for making the drunkard. 

The liquor-seller is not today a man with the 
occasional standing of the old-time tavern-keeper, 
whose cross-roads hostelry was a place where food 
and lodging as well as drink were supplied. He 
might, in many ways, command the respect of the 
community. But the saloon-keeper of today must 



The Saloon-Keeper's Position 291 

disregard his personal status for the sake of gain. 
He must realize this, as well as the fact that the 
gain does not always come. In thousands of cases 
the saloon-keeper is but the servant of the manu- 
facturer, especially in the large cities, where the 
brewer, or, more rarely, the distiller, is the backer, 
and, in many cases, the real owner of the drinking 
places. In Chicago, for instance, it was learned 
from the city collector's records that less than 
twenty-five per cent of licenses are issued directly 
to the saloon-keeper. When the time for payment 
arrives, the agents of breweries come in with 
bunches of licenses in their hands, which are paid 
for with a single check. Every large brewery has 
such intimate financial relations with the various 
saloons on its books as to make it difficult for an 
outsider to tell whether the brewery is the owner or 
not. In 1906, forty-two breweries were liable on 
the bonds of saloon-keepers for twenty-one million 
dollars! With the brewery holding the lease, in- 
stalling the fixtures, furnishing the beer and other 
supplies, and protected, of course, by the usual 
mortgage, it appears that the lot of the saloon- 
keeper himself may not be always a particularly 
happy one. What he does is to engage in a degrad- 
ing business without even the assurance that it will 
be profitable. Competition, in many localities, has 
led the brewers to establish more saloons than can 
do a profitable business and, as a consequence, the 



292 The Saloon-Keeper's Position 

saloon-keeper himself is crippled by his sponsor 
and master. 

In 1908 the retail liquor-selling places which 
paid a special tax to the Government, were, in 
round numbers, 250,000. The national liquor ex- 
penditures for the same year were estimated at over 
$2,174,000,000, which would give $23.84 a day or 
$8,700 a year as the average income of a saloon. 
It is estimated — though necessarily the figures must 
be varying — that, considering the relative propor- 
tion drunk of beer, whiskey and other spirits, this 
would amount to about four hundred drinks a day 
for a saloon, which would give forty men ten drinks 
apiece. This would put about ten million people 
in the ranks of regular saloon patrons, each ex- 
pending about sixty cents a day. It is apparent 
that in many localities this trade could not be had. 
Fortunes are made in the conduct of some drink- 
ing places, while many of them fail. Saloon-keep- 
ing, as a business, is by no means always profitable. 

There is another consideration, which, it might 
be imagined, would affect the saloon-keeper more 
than it does. As is shown elsewhere, the majority 
of those engaged in the retail liquor traffic are of 
foreign birth, and perhaps, in the majority of cases, 
profess the Catholic religion. Yet their church 
does not countenance their occupation. Pope Leo 
XIII., in a letter to Archbishop Ireland, has said — 

"Let pastors do their best to drive the plague of 



The Saloon-Keeper's Position 293 

intemperance from the fold of Christ by assiduous 
preaching and exhortation, and to shine before all 
as models of abstinence, that so many calamities 
with which this vice threatens both church and 
state may, by their endeavors, be averted." 

Archbishop Ireland himself has said — 

"Would God place in my hand a wand with 
which to dispel the evil of intemperance, I would 
strike the door of every saloon, every distillery, of 
every brewery, until the accursed traffic should be 
wiped from the face of the earth." 

Cardinal Manning, of England, is no less out- 
spoken in referring to the business. He says — 

"The drink traffic is a permanent and ubiquitous 
agency of degradation to the people of these realms. 
The drink trade of this country has a sleeping 
partner which gives it effectual protection. Every 
successive government raises at least a third of its 
budget by the trade in drink. The drink trade is 
our shame, scandal, and sin; and, unless brought 
under by the will of the people, it will be our down- 
fall. Alas! in America also does the sleeping 
partner, for a money consideration, give its protec- 
tion to the drink trade. Do you know how to break 
up the unholy alliance between government and the 
greatest fraud of the age? Vote against it." 

Should not such injunction anH such condemna- 
tion from authorities so respected Have effect upon 
those professing their Christianity and Having, sup- 



294 The Saloon-Keeper s Position 

posably, a degree of regard for its promises and 
penalties? 

As for the Protestant church, its attitude toward 
the liquor traffic is no less antagonistic and fre- 
quently and strongly expressed. The seller of in- 
toxicants cannot but realize that he has ranged 
himself in opposition to the churches' mission. He 
is, in short, the opponent of Christianity every- 
where. 

Taken all in all, what inducement is there for 
any man to engage in the business of retailing 
liquor? He must, in the very beginning, sacrifice 
what should be the most important thing to him. 
He must stifle his conscience; he knows, in his 
heart, that his occupation is not good. He is an 
element of evil in the community. He produces 
nothing, and, unlike other tradesmen, has not the 
excuse that his services are required in handling a 
necessity. What he deals in is not a necessity, but 
a hurtful indulgence. His existence does not add 
to the well-being of the community, but is a drain 
upon its resources. His self respect should appeal 
to him. 

Finally, and greatest of the considerations which 
should affect him, are the social conditions which 
the saloon-keeper imposes upon himself and those 
nearest him. His own status is injured, and in most 
instances, his own character. It is inevitable that 
constant association at all hours with humanity at 
its worst must influence the mind, accustoming it 



The Saloon-Keeper's Position 295 

to the coarseness and indecencies of behaviour of 
the drunken. It is not in men to escape the effect 
of their surroundings. It is a certainty that the 
saloon-keeper must become hardened to the dic- 
tates of all the finer inclinations. Self-interest and 
force of circumstances make him more or less the 
associate of the lawless. His point of view must 
become, in a measure, that of the outlaw, and 
viciousness does not annoy him. 

The average man finds his greatest interest cen- 
tered in his family. This is a law of Nature and 
one of her best and wisest. It is primal and just 
and good; but its provisions the saloon-keeper can- 
not well regard. He is guilty of an injustice to 
his wife and children. They are handicapped, 
socially, by his occupation, and, if intelligent, must 
feel it. Should not this consideration affect a man? 

There are opportunities enough for prosperous 
life without engaging in the sale of liquor. To 
appeal to a saloon-keeper to discontinue his busi- 
ness might seem unpromising, but, as said, the 
hearts of all of them are not in their avocation. 
The fact exists, too, that the business has one merit. 
While it may coarsen, it at least develops a keen 
knowledge of human nature, and equips a man for 
affairs. He who has well managed a saloon need 
not fear to engage in other business. It is to be 
hoped that this consideration may induce reflection 
leading to consequence in the mind of retail liquor- 
dealers. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

"REVEILLE." 

Our sole object in life is happiness, our sole ef- 
fort for its attainment. Happiness comes to the 
mind only through the body. The quality of the 
body, of all its functions, of the nerves which con- 
vey impressions to the brain where thoughts, happy 
or miserable, are bred is the measure of our enjoy- 
ment of life. The laws regulating the successful 
pursuit of happiness are known and unchangeable. 
We do not sufficiently observe them. We are fool- 
ishly and wickedly careless. 

The normal, healthy man or woman is' the most 
perfect work of God, a creature to whom even this 
world might be made little short of paradise. Were 
all human beings to observe strictly every benefi- 
cent law of nature the world might eventually be- 
come a place to live in such as never dreamed of. 
But we reject the splendid enjoyment of life that 
might be ours. We will not take it. We render 
ourselves unfitted for its acquirement. The nor- 
mal man is lost. The world is debased by liquor. 

Every condition of life has its perils and its ad- 
vantages and the men of to-day are pressed by the 
same temptations and subjected to the same de- 
moralizing influences, excepting more accentu- 

296 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

REVEILLE 
Our country is being awakened to its peril and summoned to battle 
with its greatest foe. 



Reveille 297 

ated, which have moulded the destiny of genera- 
tion after generation. 

The moral law of the Universe and the grandest 
of all laws is the law of progressive development. 
A nation to prosper must be built on foundations of 
a moral character and this character is the princi- 
pal element of its strength and the only real guar- 
anty of its permanence and prosperity. 

The best protection of a nation is its men and one 
of its surest defenses is the prowess and virtue of its 
citizens. The true grandeur of a nation is in those 
qualities which constitute the true greatness of the 
individual. 

Samuel Smiles, the illustrious character writer, 
tells us that "National progress is the sum of in- 
dividual industry, energy and uprightness, as na- 
tional decay is of individual idleness, selfishness and 
vice." 

It is possible to be the noblest work of God. 
Without false stimulant, to think serenely; to act 
justly; to treat your fellow man fairly and kindly; 
to have no base passions; to quarrel with no one; 
to lead an intelligent, even, calm and well tempered 
life; to act with intellectual poise; to use your tal- 
ents for the good of mankind without injustice to 
yourself; to train yourself to your best capacity; to 
avoid over-indulgence in anything; to fairly esti- 
mate an opponent; to respect your equals; to sym- 
pathize with the unfortunate and pity the weak and 



298 Reveille 

downtrodden, and, above all else, to thank God for 
the splendid possibilities of this life, and to re- 
spect yourself as a creation of the Almighty — this 
is a normal man. 

To be free from maddening passions, free from 
strong drink ; to be a man of strength, of will power, 
free from the slavery of a habit, with a rul- 
ing desire to renounce temptation; to assert your- 
self with all the God-given powers you possess ; to 
proclaim yourself master and victor, with a deter- 
mination to fight for the right and defeat all evil 
— this is the ideal man of to-day. 

To punish transgressors and reward the just; to 
uplift the fallen ; to go to the ragged edge of hell 
to save a soul; to reach through the flames to re- 
deem the lost; to risk your life to save ' your own 
soul; to fight to the death the spoiler of homes; to 
face the devil and conquer for Mankind — this is 
a Godly man — the noblest work of God. 

Any habit if not restrained soon becomes a neces- 
sity, while necessity — trie creed of slaves — breaks 
through all law and order. The most degraded and 
wretched of human beings is the man who has 
practiced the vice of drinking so long that he curses 
it, yet craves for it and clings to it. The chains of 
his habit were too slight to be felt until they were 
too strong to be broken. 

Carlyle says that "Habit is the deepest law of 
human nature " therefore a national taste, how- 



_X- 



Reveille 299 

ever wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at 
once. Reformation is a work of time, and refuses 
to be introduced by violence. No step backward 
is the rule of human history, but every age has its 
problem to solve by which humanity can be helped 
forward. The most serious problem confronting 
the civilized world today is the habit of intemper- 
ance which dominates present moral and social 
conditions and threatens destruction to the health, 
home and happiness of a nation. 

The public mind is educated very slowly by argu- 
ments but quickly by actions. To solve this great 
problem it is, therefore, necessary to check this 
degenerating habit by educating the present genera- 
tion up to a standard of self-respect and self-re- 
straint, which will not only have a good moral 
effect upon the future condition of mankind but 
will pave the way for our younger generation, by 
purging our nation of the one great vice which 
makes way for all other vices. 

A man's conscience is his most faithful friend 
but its voice is so delicate that it is easily stifled by 
intoxicating drinks which demolish his two chief 
faculties of will and understanding, and, when man 
sees fit to offend his own conscience by drunkenness, 
he at once becomes a miserable, tempted creature, 
willing to omit every duty and acquire every vice. 
Where drunkenness reigns man's reason is exiled 
and virtue is a stranger. 



300 Reveille 

Preventives of evil produce much surer results 
than any remedies, but the real value of a doctrine 
or reform can only be determined by its influence 
on the conduct of man with respect to himself and 
his fellow creatures and to advance the prosperity 
of a people is required the concerted action of all 
who are to be benefited. 

Public opinion combined with the moral judg- 
ment of the people does more to govern the world 
than the man-made laws, and a change of opinion 
is often only the progress of good, sound thought 
and growing knowledge. 

The superior man is the one who develops his 
moral, intellectual and physical nature in harmo- 
nious proportions and who refuses to. destroy a 
healthful constitution by intemperance and an 
irregular life, which robs him of his reason and 
reputation. He must have reason; it is the glory 
of human nature and the director of man's will. 
It is our intellectual eye that enables us to see the 
right and the wrong way. 

The human mind naturally makes progress if 
not burdened with the dangerous companion of in- 
temperance which dethrones reason from its seat. 
The man without reason is beyond reform. 

The failures of life come from resting in good in- 
tentions. It is common for men to err, but it is only 
the fool who will persevere in his error. We must, 
therefore, appeal to the reason of those who have 
not degenerated to a plane where they are inclined 



Reveille 301 

to underrate the power of moral influence and the 
influence oi public opinion. 

It is curious to note the wide difference of views 
as to the true method of reformation. Victor Hugo 
in expressing his opinion, says "To reform a man 
you must begin with his grandmother," while Car- 
lyle believes that "Reform like charity must begin 
at home." One is inclined to adopt the advice of 
the latter as knowledge is acquired by study and 
observation, and the man who becomes imbued with 
the knowledge of how to reform himself does more 
toward reforming others than those who are in 
sympathy with the cause but never make a begin- 
ning. 

There is but one means' for the redemption of 
mankind, one force which can raise it above its ex- 
istent plane of being. Mankind must, in some way, 
be brought to a realization of its decadence and 
its great peril. He who sees a precipice and fully 
comprehends how treacherous are its edges and how 
vast its depths may well avoid it. All reasoning 
beings must be taught the inevitable results of the 
use of alcohol in any of its forms. On this subject, 
so fraught beyond any other with what is of im- 
portance for the world's protection and advance- 
ment, the ignorance is appalling and beyond all un- 
derstanding. The ages have been teaching the les- 
son and it has gone unheeded. We vaunt the age 
of progress; we glory in a thousand new inventions 
and discoveries; we look with hopeful eyes toward 



302 Reveille 

some near millennium when man shall labor little 
and riot in the joy of living, when, all the time, we 
are making such happiness impossible. Sound 
minds in sound bodies we are not providing. What 
to us the material progress, the inventions and im- 
provements, the conquests of the elements? A 
diseased conqueror is as pitiable an object as any 
other sick or dying man. Talk of the Dark Ages ! 
The darkness of the present enveloping the perils 
of strong drink exceeds the blackness of the past 
beyond all telling. The mass of the otherwise in- 
telligent world is yet unseeing. 

Upon those who see and understand must fall 
the great task of opening the eyes of millions. 
There must be conducted the greatest propaganda 
ever known, for the benefit of all mankind. To 
take a part in it, in his or her degree, is a duty rest- 
ing imperatively upon every man or woman who 
has a conscience or is regardful of what is de- 
manded in the name of reason, self-protection, hu- 
man love and sympathy or Christianity. The world 
must be at last aroused as to its peril from the use 
of alcohol, a use degrading tens of millions, slay- 
ing annually its millions, and the cause of most of 
the world's suffering in a host of forms. 

It is a crusade in which to join — intelligently and 
resolutely. It is the greatest movement ever 
planned for doing good, and, surely, those who take 
a part in it may look more calmly upon what is to 
come elsewhere. It will succeed. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE UPHEAVAL. 

Millions of people in the United States have 
been aroused by various means to a realization of 
the enormously evil effects of the use of alcoholic 
liquors in this country, and of the increasing peril 
to the individual and the nation. Within the past 
half-century, the average consumption of alcohol 
by each person has nearly doubled. A general agi- 
tation for the suppression of the evil is in progress, 
with already great results. 

There have been such movements before, but 
none with such impelling reason, or with such last- 
ing earnestness behind it. In Colonial days, the 
harmful effects of drunkenness, even among the 
sturdy pioneers, became so general and apparent 
that a fierce demand for reform arose, but abated 
with changed conditions and the exciting events, 
which preceded the Revolution. Again, in the 
years between 1850 and i860, the conscience and 
apprehension of the country were aroused and a 
campaign begun which might have accomplished 
much but was ended with the War of the Rebel- 
lion, beside which all other issues were soon 
dwarfed. These two movements, neither of them 
insignificant nor limited in area, failed to become 

303 



304 The Upheaval 

national, but they left their effect upon the public 
mind. They induced serious thought upon a sub- 
ject so grave that it should, at all times, have com- 
manded general attention and prompt action. They 
gave to the country its first comprehension of the 
fact that it was afflicted with a cancer, and that the 
malignant growth was extending with alarming 
rapidity. There has been no time within recent 
years that the wisest and most honest and patriotic, 
the thinking men and women of the United States, 
have not been more and more convinced that the 
need existed for an immediate vast reform and 
change if the prosperous future of the country were 
to be assured. The magnitude of the extending 
plague and wrong has become constantly more ap- 
parent and the resolution of the better part of the 
people of the United States has become fixed. The 
disquiet and dread have crystalized into what is 
impelling action. War against the liquor evil, a 
great campaign in the interest of all humanity, has 
already begun and will be waged on a scale never 
known in the past It will be so widely forced be- 
cause the well-being of millions, the welfare of the 
nation of the present and the future generations 
depend upon its issue. The struggle may not be 
successful at once, but it will not cease while the 
laws of nature are being violated on so wide a scale 
by those engaged in an avocation baneful in its 
every aspect and result. The present is no erratic 



The Upheaval 305 

nor casual uprising. It has come slowly, but its 
mutterings have been discernible for years, to swell 
at last into the battle-cry of the imperiled. There 
will be no cessation of the conflict now nor in the 
years to come. Humanity at last has reached the 
place where it must face the greatest issue of its ex- 
istence. There is no room nor time for parley or 
negotiation. There is in progress a holy war for 
self-preservation, and there can be no abatement 
of its vigor. Those interested in the manufacture 
and sale of alcohol in any of its guises or disguises 
may talk of a "passing wave," something the force 
of which is already spent, but their words are 
fatuous. It is natural that those engaged in such a 
work as theirs, the distribution of a poison for the 
destruction of their fellow-men, should not be of a 
nature to comprehend the quality of this crusade 
too long deferred, or what will be its spirit in the 
future — resolute, decided, and, above all, persist- 
ent. It will be a struggle which can never termin- 
ate until the end is reached, since it is neither more 
nor less than a fight for life. The extension of the 
cause of poverty and crime and disease and death 
throughout all human kind is something which can 
no longer be endured or tolerated. There will be 
no apathy or truce, as from Colonial days to the 
'50's, or from the '50's up to recent times. It is to 
be a war of extermination. The liquor interest 
cannot understand this. It may fail to do so until 



306 The Upheaval 

it dies snarling like a wolf at bay, but the outcome, 
to whatever time it may be deferred, cannot be 
doubted. The drink evil will be done away with. 
To reason otherwise would be to look upon man- 
kind as possessing less intelligence than the brute 
creation. Its eyes have been opened in this country 
and it will neither submit to murder, nor, in its 
weakness, drift to suicide. 

How far has the standard of the intelligent and 
far-seeing and patriotic been advanced already? 
It is gratifying to know that the enfranchisement of 
some of the liquor-enslaved States has already been 
accomplished. Conditions in this country have 
changed greatly for good within the last two years. 
Over great areas where saloons existed by the per- 
mission of the people, but where, it might almost be 
said, the people existed by permission of the 
saloons, the saloons exist no longer, and would not 
exist at all but for the implied consent of the Fed- 
eral Government's issuance of tax receipts, which 
are construed as licenses, and encourage the estab- 
lishment of hidden places for the evasion of State 
laws. The movement has gained strength with 
each success. Some features of the manner of its 
progress are most interesting. 

First came the Five-Mile Law in country dis- 
tricts, which prohibited the sale of liquor within 
five miles of certain churches and schoolhouses. 
These purely local statutes applied only to speci- 



The Upheaval 307 

fied neighborhoods. Their operation was so 
beneficent that they multiplied rapidly all over the 
country. This was the germ of local option. The 
idea was then carried one step farther, and applied 
to the beat or precinct. The voters determined 
whether or not liquor should be sold therein. By a 
logical process, local option was extended to the 
county. Here the laws rested for many years, and 
thousands of elections were held throughout the 
United States. 

For a period of twenty years country neighbor- 
hoods and agricultural communities gradually 
voted against liquor. This shut the cross-roads 
doggery and drove the trade to the towns, where 
there was a mistaken theory of police protection. 
Practically, the policemen protected the saloon 
men. The progress of public opinion then directed 
itself against the saloon in the smaller town and 
drove it from the village. 

Under the county local-option system now pre- 
vailing in most of the United States, the saloon has 
practically been eliminated, except in the larger 
cities. Thousands upon thousands have been put 
out of business, and every one of them has weak- 
ened their general political strength by just that 
many votes. 

As State by State drove the saloon into a few of 
its cities, making them the distributing point for 
"blind tiger" beer and whiskey throughout the dry 



308 The Upheaval 

districts, the cry of State-wide prohibition gained 
strength, but, for a time, its adoption seemed a 
thing in doubt in many States where toleration of 
the saloon had always been considered but submis- 
sion to a necessary evil. Then, as what followed 
the adoption of prohibition in one State gave to 
others convincing illustration of its wisdom, there 
came a change. Light was dawning upon the 
apathetic. Those who countenanced prohibition, 
but who did not quite believe in forcing it upon 
others, became, at last, willing to sacrifice an ab- 
stract opinion for the sake of an evident and exist- 
ing good, and State prohibition in some cases car- 
ried startlingly. Who, for instance, would have 
thought, ten years ago, that such States as Georgia, 
Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, 
and even the new State of Oklahoma would have 
done away with the saloon? But the South is still 
largely the home of native Americans. The inhab- 
itants of most of that section are fifteen of native 
parentage to one of foreign, and twenty persons on 
the farm to one in the cities. As has been well said 
of them, they preserve the conditions, habits, and 
religious feelings of the country of farmers the 
United States was at the time of the origin of the 
temperance movement in the beginning of the last 
century. From this section, naturally, comes one of 
the greatest forces to aid in the attempt to redeem 
the nation from its greatest curse. And, with these, 



The Upheaval 309 

other States, already prohibition, are standing 
steadfast and enforcing their laws with more effi- 
ciency as time goes on. Maine, Kansas, North 
Dakota, and others are in place and in every State 
in the Union the enlightenment is growing. De- 
spite the frantic efforts of the liquor interests, 
aggression is on the side of the prohibitionists. 
Perhaps over a half of the United States has be- 
come what is known relatively as "dry" territory, 
with consequent increase of prosperity, and all that 
makes life worthy or worth while, and even in some 
of the cities — liquor's strongholds — the sale of in- 
toxicants has been prohibited. Eleven cities of 
over 50,000 inhabitants are included in this class. 

Various organized forces have been at work in 
attaining ends so infinitely desirable. The Prohi- 
bition party has continued its agitation in a good 
cause. All know the work of the Woman's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union, and there are other organ- 
izations of the same class whose labors have been 
effective. The Catholic Total Abstinence Union is 
a powerful temperance society within the Roman 
Catholic Church. Its influence has extended out- 
side the confines of that body and it is working and 
co-operating in every way possible with similar 
societies, non-Catholic, in the common warfare be- 
ing made against the viciousness of intemperance. 

The Anti-Saloon League is a powerful factor in 
the field. It is a Protestant organization which 



310 The Upheaval 

started in Ohio, and its work has been character- 
ized by exceptional vigor and originality. It has 
headquarters in nearly every State in the Union 
and a large corps of workers maintained by the 
contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars 
annually from those who sympathize with its great 
object. Its general programme is thus described: 

"The United States is a rural country by a vote 
of three to one. Many of its States have a rural 
majority of twenty to one. This rural majority, 
generally speaking, can be counted on to vote for 
prohibition. We will first secure the right to vote 
by counties on the question of prohibition. In this 
way we can carry most counties in most States 'dry/ 
making all the cities possibly 'dry' in this way. 
Having done this thoroughly, we shall go to the 
State Legislatures, where a large majority of repre- 
sentatives are elected from country districts, and 
have them vote the State 'dry' by a State prohibi- 
tion law. All cities in that State will then be 
forced 'dry.' When a sufficient number of States 
are 'dry,' we can make this a prohibition nation." 

Such, in a general way, is the present situation in 
the United States on the question of abolishing the 
liquor traffic, and such some of the established 
agencies for the attainment of that end — forces 
which should be united. Behind and with them, 
though, has arisen a mightier force. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THE CASE OF TWO STATES. 

The relations which have arisen between the 
separate states and the Federal Government, be- 
cause of the issuance indiscriminately of tax re- 
ceipts giving permission to manufacture or deal in 
alcoholic drinks, is strikingly illustrated by the rela- 
tive situations in Alabama and Oklahoma. No- 
where else is afforded a more flagrant disregard by 
Uncle Sam of the wishes of individual common- 
wealths as expressed in their statutes nor more vic- 
ious example of the manner in which his sanction 
of crime is taken advantage of by the lawless and 
mercenary. The desires of the two states men- 
tioned are set at naught; the laws, of one of them 
at least, have been practically nullified. 

Oklahoma, young in the sisterhood of states, is 
a commonwealth of importance. She came into the 
Union with a population already of 1,414,177; half 
as much as had the entire thirteen colonies when 
they achieved their independence. She had six 
times the population of any other state at the time 
of its admission into the Union. No other state has 
entered with so many of the attributes of greatness. 
Her wealth was many times greater than that of 
any other state when it came into the sisterhood, 

311 



312 [The Case of <jT<wo States 

She was admitted in the era of wireless telegraphy, 
steel architecture, chemical farming and all the 
many arts and sciences that go with modern prog- 
ress, which no other state had at the time of ad- 
mission. She began with 800 banks, 500 news- 
papers, 470,000 school children, 25 colleges, 6,000 
district schools and 1,500 churches. The area of 
the state is twice that of the kingdom of Portugal 
and six and a half times more than the kingdom of 
Belgium. The value of farms and other real estate 
in Oklahoma was more than $400,000,000 when she 
was admitted and she had thousands of miles of rail- 
way, ninety-six towns and cities with a population 
from 1,000 to 35,000, with electric light plants, 
traction railways, modern hotels, steel office blocks, 
theatres, libraries, clubs, commercial associations 
and charitable institutions. And, in addition to all 
this prosperity in the present, Oklahoma had prom- 
ise of greater in the future, in that prohibition of 
the manufacture or sale of intoxicating drinks was 
embodied in her constitution! Congress accepted 
that constitution as just and wise, and, in all justice 
and honor, the government was compelled to re- 
spect its every clause. 

What followed this wise provision for her future 
welfare made by the state of Oklahoma? Was it 
effective? The Federal Government made little 
better than a jest of it! Uncle Sam gave tax re- 
ceipts permitting the manufacture and sale of in- 




X 


V 




rouSctta^ 




^Ejl 



Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

JANUS-FACED 
Uncle Sam leads his double life on a gigantic scale. With his right 
hand he does good, with his left he accomplishes untold evil. His counte- 
nance on either side has the same triumphant smirk. 



The Case of Two States 313 

toxicants in Oklahoma to every would-be law- 
breaker who applied for one, and soon the new 
state was overrun by a horde of conscienceless ad- 
venturers who smuggled in liquor and distributed 
liquor everywhere, eluding and defying the newly- 
constituted authorities. The change for the worse 
was marked and immediate. Under a territorial 
government it was a felony to sell liquor to the 
Indians, and the United States courts and officials 
strictly enforced the law, but, under statehood, the 
United States courts and officials allowed our 
proteges as much as they might want. "Boot-leg- 
gers," and other beer and whiskey salesmen were, 
and are, omnipresent, despite the efforts of state offi- 
cials, unprepared and incapable of patroling with 
sufficient thoroughness so great an area of country. 
The inter-state commerce laws allowed alcohol to 
be brought in by train. The purpose of one of the 
constitution's most important clauses has been in- 
differently and directly thwarted by the general 
government. 

What followed was natural and, in its outcome, 
pitiful. A general protest arose in Oklahoma 
against the action of the United States in thus vitiat- 
ing the self-protecting act of the new common- 
wealth. Petitions were widely circulated and 
signed by 2,000 leading citizens and an appeal was 
made to Washington that tax receipts for liquor 
licenses should not be issued in Oklahoma, except 



314 The Case of Two States 

by authorization of the state, and that protection 
under inter-state commerce rights be withheld from 
those shipping intoxicating liquors into prohibi- 
tion states or districts. And, the appeal received 
no answer! 

Somewhat different regarding the liquor traffic 
is the condition of affairs in Alabama. In that state 
has been enacted a prohibition law intended to ef- 
fect its purpose. Alabama strongly upholds her 
right to live sanely. Without abrogation of any 
government statute and without rebellion, a state's 
just claim has been established, and apparently se- 
cured; the right to protect her people from the 
scourge of the most insolent and impudent, and at 
the same time, crafty forces that ever cursed the 
world; the right to save her growing youth from 
habits that would wreck their womanhood or man- 
hood; the right to keep the weak from becoming 
besotted and impoverished; the right to dry the 
tears of women and to save helpless children from 
hunger, starvation and disease; the right to im- 
prove and exalt the aggregate of her citizenship; 
the right to place herself before the world as a pat- 
tern of lofty statehood! 

The sweeping and practical law, adopted by a 
heavy majority in the legislature, and which has 
attracted national attention more than any similar 
measure within recent years, has thirty-nine sec- 
tions and contains over twelve thousand words. Its 



The Case of (Two States 315 

main features are worthy of presentation. It is 
such a law as Oklahoma may yet enact in support 
of her violated constitution. 

The first section provides for the punishment of 
persons who allow the traffic on any premises that 
they own or the storage of prohibited liquors 
thereon, guilt of which shall be a misdemeanor. 
The second section deals with the manufacture or 
sale of the stuff. The third section prohibits the 
advertisement of prohibited drink. The fourth 
section declares that any premises not used exclu- ; 
sively as a dwelling that contains any of the pnv 
hibited liquors shall be regarded as violating the 
law. The fifth section is to hinder the delivery of 
the beverages. The sixth prevents the officers of 
jails and other prisons from giving the prohibited 
drink to prisoners, except as medicine duly pre- 
scribed. The seventh makes it a misdemeanor for 
any one connected with the handling of passengers 
or baggage on railway trains, or the running of 
trains or street cars, to drink the beverages prohib- 
ited. The eighth refers further to such persons, 
including those connected with steam vessels in 
the capacity of manipulating them. Section eight 
gives to wives, children, parents or other persons 
who may be injured in person, property or means 
of support, by an intoxicated person, right of action 
against the intoxicated one or those who furnished 
the drink. "And this right of action survives to the 



316 The Case of Two States 

legal representatives of the injured, in case of 
death. Section nine provides for the fine and im- 
prisonment, either or both, of concealed persons — 
generally termed "blind tigers" — who manufac- 
ture or dispose of the beverages prohibited. The 
ninth section regulates the action to be taken by 
officers of the law in all these cases. Section ten 
deals with witnesses in the prosecution of all 
malfeasants in the premises. Section twelve refers 
to the action of grand juries in the workings of the 
law. Section thirteen refers to the duty of judges 
in the impaneling of grand juries and their in- 
structions. Section fourteen declares that grand 
juries shall have no discretion in the matter of in- 
dictments further than to present them when there 
is evidence of violation of the law as to drink. Sec- 
tion fifteen disallows the claim of any clerk or other 
person as to incriminating himself, in giving testi- 
mony in the prosecution of violators of the law. 
Section sixteen makes it unlawful for any person, 
firm or corporation engaged in the business of sell- 
ing beverages to keep on their premises any of the 
liquors or beverages prohibited by this law. Sec- 
tion seventeen makes it a misdemeanor to solicit 
orders in the State for the delivery of any of the 
prohibited beverages. Section eighteen makes it 
the duty of every sheriff in the State to discover and 
publish, once a month, the names, business loca- 
tion, etc., of all persons holding United States inter- 



The Case of Two States 317 

nal revenue license or tax stamps, as distillers or 
otherwise handling intoxicating liquors. Section 
nineteen tabulates liquor nuisances. Section twenty 
provides the manner for abating these nuisances. 
Section twenty-one provides further for these abate- 
ments. Section twenty-two deals with search war- 
rants. Section twenty-three makes it unlawful to 
receive for storage, distribution or consignment any 
of the liquors under consideration. Section twenty- 
four provides against the shipment within the State 
of these liquors. Section twenty-five provides that 
any transportation company, warehouse company 
or other corporation chartered under the laws of 
Alabama shall lose its charter by the infraction of 
these laws. Section twenty-six prohibits leases for 
the purpose of handling or in any manner harbor- 
ing the prohibited liquors. Section twenty-seven 
makes it a misdemeanor for any one to publicly 
drink intoxicants, and gives to railway conductors 
and the custodians of public buildings police pow- 
ers in the enforcement of this section. Section 
twenty-eight provides for the punishment of per- 
sons violating the State law through the license or 
tax stamps of the United States internal revenue. 
Section twenty-nine provides further against the 
evasion of the law and grants immunity to wit- 
nesses who testify as having been the purchasers of 
goods contraband under this bill. The remaining 
sections pertain, for the most part, to legal proced- 



318 The Case of Two States 

ure under the law, except the last section — the 
thirty-ninth — which says : "This act shall take ef- 
fect from and after its approval by the Governor, 
the public welfare requiring it." 

Elsewhere, as has been shown, where the vast 
majority of the people have already expressed their 
desire for prohibition, the laws have been evaded 
and set at naught. Alabama suffered from this un- 
til forbearance ceased to be a virtue. The liquor 
traffic laughed at her efforts to protect herself. The 
present drastic law is the result. The insolence of 
the traffic has been its own undoing. 

The words "diligence" and "Alabama" appear, 
somehow, to have a fine connection. When, after 
the close of the Civil War, the famous "Alabama 
claims" were prosecuted by the United States 
against Great Britain, the issue depended upon 
whether or not the latter country had exercised 
"due diligence" in preventing the equipment and 
departure and depredations of the famous cruiser; 
and the term became, and remained, a text-word 
for the exercise of care in the discharge of duty. 
It is as demanding an expression today as ever. By 
the exercise of due diligence on the part of city, 
county and other officials in prohibition states the 
present evil conditions made possible by the prac- 
tical connivance of the Federal Government with 
law-breakers may be, at least, ameliorated. Due 
diligence is worthy of becoming a watchword. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE STATE RESPONSIBLE. 

If the consumption of liquor does not cease in 
any state having the right kind of prohibitory laws, 
then the state authorities are responsible. There 
is something wrong somewhere. 

Time was, perhaps, when state officials might 
with some show of reason bring the excuse for in- 
efficiency that national laws so interfered with those 
of the state that, under some circumstances, they 
were helpless. That excuse no longer exists. Later 
national legislation has made the way clear for 
them. If they fail to prosecute and convict when- 
ever intoxicants are disposed of in prohibited ter- 
ritory they are derelict and culpable to the utmost, 
unfit to hold their places. 

Elsewhere is described how, at one time, the 
manufacturers and shippers of intoxicants managed 
to evade the consequences of state legislation by 
falling back on rulings made under that con- 
venience for wrong-doers, the interstate commerce 
law, and making liquor "packages" of any size, 
even as small as the dimensions of a single bottled 
drink, and how, by shipping to a fictitious con- 
signee, they were, under the rulings mentioned, 

319 



320 The State Responsible 

enabled to carry on what was, to all intents and 
purposes, a regular saloon business in forbidden ter- 
ritory. All that is changed. The abuse has been 
done away with by a national enactment and if 
drinking continues in prohibition states it is be- 
cause the authorities in those states are criminally 
negligent. 

But there is one thing surely and certainly to be 
considered in connection with the responsibility of 
state officials. They must work under a law the 
tenor of which cannot possibly be mistaken. It 
must be good for something. It must be law which 
cannot be misconstrued or in any manner evaded 
because of dimness in its wording, or any lack in 
its provisions. It must cover the whole ground and 
cover it so thoroughly that there can be no avoiding 
it nor any loophole through which the liquor seller 
can writhe. It must be made to compel search, 
and pursuit and conviction, and swift punishment. 
No other sort of statute will do. Alabama has, 
perhaps, given the best object lesson up to the 
present time, as to how such a law should be con- 
structed, something comprehensive and sternly 
adequate for the purpose for which it was intended. 

And here is where the politician has come in! 
The professional politician and the liquor dealer 
are as brothers. They sleep in the same bed and 
drink out of the same cup and their vicious in- 
terests are made identical. Plunder is the object 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vansant. 

THE BLIND TIGER 
Uncle Sam is brought to a realization of the ferocity of the beast whose 
growth he has encouraged and which is being driven from Alabama. No 
tax receipt can there remove the cause for his vain roars and snarling. 



The State Responsible 321 

of each and they work together. Craftily and faith- 
fully, they work together. 

Legislatures make the prohibition laws and the 
complexion of the legislature is the first object of 
concern to the politician and the liquor seller alike. 
Observe the politician now! He is more than busy, 
but is he the exponent of what politics, according 
to the definition in the dictionary, is supposed to 
mean: "The science or the art of government, or 
the administration of national or public affairs; 
that part of ethics which consists in the knowledge 
or the practice of conducting the various affairs of 
a state or nation?" Is he "one who is versed in 
the science of government, a person skilled in or 
devoted to the administration of public affairs ?" 
"Versed" and "skilled" he certainly is, but not in 
the science of government. It is the science of mis- 
government in which he shines. Preceding the 
election of a legislature which may have to deal 
with the liquor problem he becomes the people's 
guide. Moses in the wilderness could not have 
been more impressive or anxious or solicitous. He 
hustles. He wants that legislature composed of 
men high-minded and competent and fitted to the 
task before them — that is, according to his stand- 
ard. 

The story is as old as the history of all pro- 
hibitory legislation. Everyone is familiar with it. 
Wherever he dare the politician has in the past 



322 The State Responsible 

sought to stem the tide of temperance sentiment 
and, as is apparent on all sides, he is doing the 
same thing today as shown in the happenings 
preceding late elections. He is as active as Satan 
in behalf of the interests of his partner, the distrib- 
utor of alcohol. He pleads, he argues, he promises 
what he does not intend to give. He is a trick- 
ster who seeks to dupe the honest voter. He wields 
the party lash and when that will not avail, he lies 
fluently as to the objects and intentions of those 
whom he would have become lawmakers. He 
wants men who can be warped, and to secure them 
stops at nothing. There is no limit to his strata- 
gems and machinations in such an emergency as 
indicated. He becomes, if possible, more unscru- 
pulous than usual. It is a mighty serious matter to 
the politician when the election of a temperance 
legislature is in prospect. 

But the allies of the liquor interests may fail in 
the beginning of the campaign. The people, un- 
derstanding and aroused, elect the people's candi- 
date and a prohibition measure is certain to be 
adopted. Is the politician dazed at all and has he 
withdrawn despairingly from the struggle? 
Hardly! He has just begun to fight. He is on his 
own particular ground now, and knows just what 
to do. He knows what legislation is that does not 
legislate; he knows what strangling means, what 
mutilation means, what devilish surgeon's work in 



The State Responsible 323 

giving a false face to a measure means! "Let the 
fools pass their bill! We'll so distort its features 
that men will look upon it with dislike; we'll so 
twist every limb that it cannot walk alone or hold 
a thing within its grasp. We'll make a farcical 
thing of it!" 

And that is just what the politician does or at- 
tempts to do with a prohibition measure in the leg- 
islature. His friend, the liquor man, is at his side; 
they have the craftiest and most able and inventive 
counsel at command, to suggest and give assist- 
ance; they have money, and, above all, they are 
impelled by dire necessity. They are striking for 
more than their altars and their fires; they are 
fighting for a continuance of the huge profit from 
the sale of alcohol, for the privilege of fattening on 
the community! 

Never elsewhere in all the attendant circum- 
stances of lawmaking are called into exercise more 
craft, duplicity and cunning than when a prohibi- 
tion bill is on its way to passage. If it cannot be so 
emasculated as to be absurd and ineffective, the 
endeavor of the politician is to have inserted in it 
some feature so objectionable that the law will be- 
come unpopular in itself and, though adopted, 
practically inoperative. Anything to defeat the end 
sought by the legislation in hand will satisfy him. 
He is not particular as to means. His last resort 
may be the "joker," the apparently harmless, un- 




324 £he State Responsible 

obtrusive passage which may not attract the atten- 
tion of those who have the real welfare of the 
measure at heart, but which in its full significance 
will make nugatory and abortive all that honest 
men have done. A favorite recourse of the poli- 
tician and the liquor dealer is the so-called "joker." 
It is a device in accord with their usage and in- 
clination. Poison in the cup appeals to them. 

But, all the trickery and treachery of its oppon- 
ents may not avail to prevent effective prohibitory 
legislation when the people are in earnest. They 
may come into the possession of the best of weapons 
for the destruction of their worst enemy. There is 
practically nothing in their way. While the tax 
receipts of the general government might seem, at 
first, to afford some slight remaining standing to 
the liquor interest, they may, on the contrary, be- 
come a dangerous possession to those who hold 
them. Under wise state legislation they become 
but damnatory evidence. The state is armed. All 
that remains is for its servants to do their duty. 

Here must the voter exercise the utmost caution, 
and, when he finds his trust misplaced he should 
be merciless. For state and local offices, if a prohi- 
bition law is to be really enforced, only earnest and 
honest men should be selected, from governor 
down to constable. There are moral as well as 
man-made laws and the first should compel a sense 
of obligation in those entrusted with enforcement 



The State Responsible 325 

of the second; but men get into office to whom a 
moral law does not exist. Some of them will prove 
recreant. They will be tempted and will fall and, 
where they do, the liquor men will have their way. 
What treatment should be accorded them? What 
mercy is shown a traitor in war or the betrayer of a 
trust in time of peace? What object is there in 
thoughtful legislation for the people's good if the 
people's agents make such legislation vain? They 
exist but they should be punished, counted but as 
recreants and outcasts. 

It is all simple enough. Given a prohibition law 
that fits a state as tightly and is as impervious to 
assault as a shirt of mail, given honest and vigilant 
and efficient state and local officials, and, as condi- 
tions even now exist everywhere in the United 
States, such law can be made effective in its full 
spirit and intent. It is plainly "up to" the states, 
or, to speak more definitely, to the people of the 
states. The issue, since they are beginning to com- 
prehend it, may be safely left to them. 




CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE VOICE OF THE COURTS. 

Let us summarize and review the decisions, of 
the courts of last resort, on the liquor traffic, first 
reverting to the constituency of these courts : 

The Supreme Court of the United States is com- 
posed of one Chief Justice and eight Associates. 
They are men of large intellects, liberal education, 
particularly learned in jurisprudence, having an ex- 
tensive knowledge of public interests, human nature 
and the practical affairs of life — unbiased, free 
from prejudice, conservative — Audi alteram par- 
tem (hear the other side) is their motto. To this 
they religiously adhere, giving both sides an equal 
opportunity. 

Seven is about the average number composing the 
Supreme Courts of the various States. What has 
been said of the personnel of the United States Su- 
preme Court, largely applies to the Supreme Court 
of each State. The former decide cases brought to 
them from every State, involving every interest, 
condition and intricate question of life. They listen 
to or read elaborate arguments from both sides, pre- 
pared by able counsel with consummate skill. No 
case is decided until all have carefully examined 
and considered its merits, and all have given their 

326 



The Voice of the Courts 327 

assent to the correctness of the conclusion reached, 
or if any differ from the six that constitute a 
quorum, they file a dissenting opinion. Their con- 
clusions when reached are as near infallibility as can 
be attained by a human tribunal. Their decisions 
on the question of the retail traffic in intoxicating 
liquors, known as the saloon business, coming from 
the highest tribunal in the land, are instructive. 
They are lengthy. Brief extracts from a few of 
them will suffice for the purpose here. They are 
quoted verbatim and carefully compared. 

In the case of Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S. 205, 
the Supreme Court of the United States declares: 

"That the right to manufacture and sell intox- 
icating liquors does not inhere in citizenship" 

In the case of Crowley vs. Christensen, 137 U. S. 
86, the Supreme Court of the United States said: 

"There is no inherent right in a citizen to sell 
intoxicating liquors at retail; it is not a privilege of 
a citizen of the State or of the United States" 

They adhere to the same opinion in the case of 
Cronin vs. Adams, 192 U. S. 108. 

In the cases of Bartmeyer vs. State of Iowa, 85 
U. S. 129; Boston Beer Co. vs. Massachusetts, 97 
U. S. 33; Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S. 205; and 
others, the Supreme Court of the United States has 
held — that, "The business of selling intoxicating 
liquors is unlawful at common law" "That as a 
measure of protection, looking to the preservation 



328 The Voice of the Courts 

of the public morals, the state may prohibit the 
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors." 

The Supreme Court of the United States in the 
case of Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S. 205, says: 

"It is not necessary, for the sake of justifying the 
state legislation now under consideration, to array 
the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism and 
crime which have their origin in the use or abuse 
of ardent spirits." 

The Supreme Court of the United States in 
Crowley vs. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86, says: By 
the general concurrence of opinion of every civ- 
ilized Christian community, there are few sources 
of crime and misery to society equal to the dram 
shop, where intoxicating liquors, in small quanti- 
ties, to be drunk at the time, are sold indiscriminate- 
ly to all parties applying. The statistics of every 
state show, a greater amount of crime and misery 
attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at 
these retail liquor saloons than to any other source/' 

A few decisions of the state Supreme Courts in 
connection with the foregoing, may not be amiss. 

In the case of the State vs. Gerhardt, 145 Ind. 
439, the court says: "The unrestricted traffic in 
intoxicating liquors has been found, by sad experi- 
ence to be fraught with great evil, and to result in 
the most demoralizing influence on private morals, 
and the peace and safety of the public!' 

The Supreme Court of South Carolina, in the 



The Voice of the Courts 329 

case of the State vs. Akin, 26 L. R. A. 385, said: 
"Liquor in its nature is dangerous to morals, good 
order, health and safety of the people, and is not to 
be placed on the same footing with the ordinary 
commodities of life such as grain, wheat, cotton, 
potatoes, etc." 

The Supreme Court of Illinois, in the case of 
People vs. Cregier, 28 N. E. Rep. 812, says: "The 
right, therefore, to engage in this business, and to 
be protected by the law in its prosecution, can no 
longer be claimed as a common law right" 

The Supreme Court of Kansas, in the case of the 
State vs. Durion, 80 Pacific Reporter 987, says: 
"The commodity in controversy is intoxicating 
liquor. The article is one whose moderate use, 
even, is taken into account by actuaries of insurance 
companies, and which bars employment in classes 
of service involving prudence and careful conduct 
— an article considered to be fraught with such con- 
tagious peril to society, that it occupies a different 
status before the courts and the legislatures from 
other kinds of property, and places traffic in it on a 
different plane from other kinds of business. It is 
still the prolific source of disease, misery, pau- 
perism, vice and crime. Its power to weaken, cor- 
rupt, debauch and slay mind character and human 
life is not destroyed or impaired because it may be 
susceptible of some innocent uses, or may be used 
with propriety on some occasions. The health, 



330 The Voice of the Courts 

morals, peace and safety of the community at large 
are still threatened" 

The Supreme Court of Iowa, in Lantes vs. State, 
2 Iowa 164, said: "There is no statistical or eco- 
nomical proposition better established, nor one to 
which a more general assent is given by reading and 
intelligent men, than this : That the use of intoxi- 
cating liquors as a drink is the cause of more want, 
pauperism, suffering, crime and public expense 
than any other cause — and perhaps it should be said 
than all other causes combined. Every state ap- 
plies the most stringent legal power to lotteries, 
gambling, keeping gambling houses and imple- 
ments, and to debauchery and obscenity, and no one 
questions the right and justice of it; but yet how 
small is the weight of woe produced by these united, 
when compared with that which is created by the 
use of intoxicating drinks alone." 

The Supreme Court of South Carolina in State 
ex rel. George V. Akin, 26 L. R. A. 352, said : "We 
do not suppose there is a more potent factor in keep- 
ing up the necessity of asylums, penitentiaries and 
jails, and naturally producing pauperism and im- 
morality through the entire country, than liquor." 

The Supreme Court of Kansas, in State ex rel. 
vs. Crawford, 42 A. Rep. 186, says: "Probably no 
greater source of crime and sorrow has ever existed 
than social drinking saloons. Social drinking is 
the evil of evils. It is the probable cause of more 



The Voice of the Courts 331 

drunkenness and has made more drunkards than all 
other causes combined, and drunkenness is the per- 
nicious source of all kinds of crime and sorrow. 
It is the Pandora s box, sending forth innumerable 
ills and woes, shame and disgrace, indigence, 
poverty and want; social happiness destroyed; 
domestic broils and bickerings engendered; social 
ties sundered; homes made desolate; families scat- 
tered ; heart-rending partings ; sin, crime and untold 
sorrow; not even hope left, but everything lost; and 
everlasting farewell to all true happiness and all 
the noble aspirations rightfully belonging to every 
true and virtuous human being." 

The Supreme Court of Indiana, in Beebe vs. 
State, 6 Ind. 542, says: That "it (drunkenness) 
produces from four-fifths to nine-tenths of all the 
crime committed, is the united testimony of those 
judges, prison-keepers, sheriffs, and others engaged 
in the administration of the criminal law, who have 
investigated the subject. That taxation to meet the 
expense of pauperism and crime, falls upon and is 
borne by the people, follows as a matter of course. 
That its tendency is to destroy the peace, safety and 
well-being of the people, to secure which the first 
article in the Bill of Rights declares all free govern- 
ments are instituted, is too obvious to be denied." 

The latest case referring to this subject, within 
our knowledge, was that of Young ex rel. vs. Soltau 
decided in 1908 by Judge Samuel R. Artman of the 



332 The Voice of the Courts 

Circuit Court of Boone County, Indiana. The court 
says : "It is not making the case too strong, to say 
that it is within the knowledge of every private 
citizen of average information as to current events, 
that the business (saloon traffic) kills many, makes 
widows and orphans, fills almshouses, jails, peni- 
tentiaries, orphanages and insane asylums; that it 
frenzies the brain and directs the murderer's hand 
to plunge the fatal knife and discharge the deadly 
weapon!' 

| The foregoing are but a few of the numerous de- 
cisions, all of the same purport and equally strong 
in their condemnation of the saloon traffic. 

Pursue the subject, and it will be discpvered that 
all here asserted regarding the stupendous devasta- 
tion caused by the liquor traffic, is confirmed by 
these high courts. 



CHAPTER XL. 

LICENSES UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

For what purpose are governments organized? 
"The Preservation and Development of Good 
Order, the Peace and Safety, Health, Morals and 
Welfare of the People and to Enforce the Right 
and Prohibit the Wrong." This right is inherent 
in every free people. Its origin is not in the lan- 
guage of any written constitution. It existed before 
constitutions were framed into written language. 
Our Federal Constitution, as well as that of every 
State of the Union, is but a written embodiment or 
expression of this right. Our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence declares: "We hold these truths to be 
self-evident, that all men ... are endowed by 
their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that 
among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. . . . That, to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men." Our 
Federal Constitution declares : "That it is adopted 
to establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquillity, 
promote the General Welfare, and to secure the 
blessings of Liberty to ourselves and to our Pos- 
terity." The constitution of the State of Illinois, 
and those of many other States, declare the same, 
in almost identically the same words. In the char- 



334 Licenses Unconstitutional 

ters of all the States of the Union, the same idea 
is expressed in language but little varied, a favorite 
expression among some of them being: "The gov- 
ernment of this State is instituted for the Peace, 
Safety and Well-being of the people." 

The right or duty to enforce whatever will ac- 
complish these objects, by ordinances or statutes, is 
called the Police Power of the Municipality, State 
or Government. 

Now, consider the objects for which govern- 
ments are formed, as stated by these authorities, the 
Federal Constitution and the constitutions of all 
the States of the Union, universally sustained by 
their Supreme Courts and the Supreme Court of 
the nation. Compare these objects, with the de- 
cisions of the United States Supreme Court, the 
highest authority of the land, and the decisions of 
the Supreme Courts of the several States, if it be 
desired to know the extent to which the retail liquor 
traffic is subversive to our government and our in- 
stitutions. From such high authority, they will 
bear repeating: 

"The appalling statistics of misery, pauperism 
and crime which have their origin in the use or 
abuse of ardent spirits." 

"There are few sources of crime and misery to 
society equal to the dram shop." 

"The statistics of every State show a greater 
amount of crime and misery attributable to the use 



"Licenses Unconstitutional 335 

of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor 
saloons than to any other source." 

"The unrestricted traffic in intoxicating liquors 
has been found, by sad experience, ... to re- 
sult in the most demoralizing influence on private 
morals, and the peace and safety of the public." 

"Liquor in its nature is dangerous to morals, good 
order, health and safety of the people." 

"It is taken into account by actuaries of insur- 
ance companies, and bars employment in classes of 
service involving prudence and careful conduct. 
. . . It is the prolific source of disease, misery, 
pauperism, vice and crime. . . . The health, 
morals, peace and safety of the community at large 
are threatened." 

"It is the cause of more want, pauperism, suffer- 
ing, crime and public expense than any other cause 
— and perhaps it should be said than all other 
causes combined." 

"A potent factor in keeping up the necessity of 
asylums, penitentiaries and jails." 

"A pernicious source of all kinds of crime and 
sorrow." 

"A Pandora's box sending forth innumerable ills 
and woes, shame and disgrace and untold sorrow." 

"Produces from four-fifths to nine-tenths of all 
the crimes committed." 

"Kills many, makes widows and orphans, fills 
almshouses, jails, penitentiaries, orphanages and in- 



336 Licenses Unconstitutional 

sane asylums; frenzies the brain and directs the 
murderer's hand to plunge the fatal knife and dis- 
charge the deadly weapon." 

Again, compare this with the objects for which 
our government was formed — "Good Order, Peace, 
Safety, Health, Morals and Welfare of the People." 
From all this can any sane person maintain that a 
state has the constitutional right to license this 
traffic; or the state or the government, to derive 
a revenue from it by taxation? It is impossible. 
This traffic, think you, "Conducive to the pursuit of 
happiness?" "Domestic tranquillity?" "Peace?" 
"Safety?" "Health, morals, and well-being of the 
people?" All know better. 

Before Judge Samuel R. Artman, to whose de- 
cision reference is again made, the question of the 
right of a state to grant a saloon license, was clearly, 
and the only question presented. He unequivocally 
decided it in the negative. The statutes of the state 
of Indiana authorized the granting of saloon 
licenses. The Court in the following language 
declared it unconstitutional : "With due apprecia- 
tion of the responsibility of the occasion, conscious 
of my obligation, under my oath to Almighty God 
and to my fellow men, I cannot, by the judgment of 
this court, authorize the granting of a saloon li- 
cense," thus emphatically denying the right of a 
state to pass a statute authorizing the issuance of 
saloon licenses. This decision, although not from 



■■ 



Licenses Unconstitutional 337 

a court of last resort, is entitled to" equal weight, by 
reason of the learning and ability of the judge, its 
invincible logic and the further fact that the saloon 
interests were afraid to appeal, lest precedent should 
be established ruinous to their interests. 

What, any State or our Federal Government, 
have a constitutional, or any other right, for rev- 
enue, or any purpose, to grant a license to, or exact 
a tax from that which the courts without a con- 
trary decision, reversal or dissenting opinion have 
declared : "Was unlawful at common law." . . . 
"To which a greater amount of crime and misery 
is attributable than to any other source." . . . 
Dangerous to morals, good order, health and safety 
of the people." "The cause of more want, pau- 
perism, suffering, crime and public expense than 
any other cause," and perhaps "all other causes 
combined." . . . "The Pandora's box sending 
forth innumerable ills and woes, shame and dis- 
grace, indigence and poverty, crime and untold sor- 
row." . . . "That frenzies the brain, directs 
the murderer's hand to plunge the fatal knife and 
discharge the deadly weapon." This to be licensed 
or taxed for revenue? Never, except we abandon 
every principle upon which free governments are 
founded and stultify the public conscience ! Neither 
the State nor the Federal Government has any such 
right. The supreme power of the land does not rest 



338 Licenses Unconstitutional 

in Legislatures nor in Congress, but in the Con- 
stitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. 
• We have already, that it may be remembered, 
thrice repeated what that Court has said. 

In the case of Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 U. S. 210, 
the Supreme Court says : "There are of necessity, 
limits beyond which legislation cannot rightfully 
go. The court must obey the constitution rather 
than the law-making department of the govern- 
ment, and must, upon their own responsibility, de- 
termine whether in any particular case these limits 
have been passed." 

In the case of Stone vs. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 
814, the Supreme Court says : "No legislature can 
bargain away the public health or -the public 
morals. The people themselves cannot do it, much 
less their servants." There are men languishing in 
penitentiaries for keeping gambling houses or con- 
ducting the lottery business. It has often been held 
by the courts that a legislature cannot grant a li- 
cense to conduct a lottery business. In the case of 
the Columbia Club vs. State, 143 Ind. no, the 
Court says: "A statute which should attempt to 
authorize prize fighting would be void." . . . 
"While prize fighting is odious and degrading, its 
evil influences are insignificant when compared to 
the destructive results of the liquor traffic." The 
Supreme Court of the United States has declared 
it to be "The greatest source of crime and misery." 



Licenses Unconstitutional 339 

Infra. Then how can the sale of liquor at retail be 
licensed or taxed? It cannot be. The Federal 
Statutes provide: "The payment of any tax im- 
posed by the Internal-Revenue Laws for carrying 
on any trade or business, shall not be held to exempt 
any person from any penalty or punishment pro- 
vided by the laws of any State for carrying on the 
same within such state, or in any manner authorize 
the commencement or continuance of such trade or 
business contrary to the laws of such state or in 
places prohibited by municipal laws; nor shall the 
payment of any tax be held to prohibit any state 
from placing a duty or tax on the same trade or 
business, for state or other purposes." Revised 
Statutes U, S., Section 3243. 

Notwithstanding this plain enactment, it is im- 
possible to bring within the comprehension of the 
average dealer, the fact, that his tax receipt issued 
by the "Government of the United States" does not 
authorize him to sell intoxicating drinks regardless 
of local or state authorities. The deference of the 
people for Federal authority is so great, (to their 
credit be it said) that they hesitate to enforce an or- 
dinance or state statute against those holding these 
tax receipts. 

Black on Intoxicating Liquors, Sec. 1250 (a 
recognized authority), after referring to the 
volume of adjudged cases holding that a license 
granted under the United States Internal Revenue 



340 Licenses Unconstitutional 

Laws, for a fee paid, gives no authority to conduct 
the business in violation of the State laws, says : 

"In view of the repeated and uniform rulings to 
this effect, one can but be surprised by the per- 
sistence and confidence with which government li- 
censes are thrust forward in defense of prosecu- 
tions for violating the liquor laws of the state." 
The reason is obvious. Most of those applying, 
when procuring these licenses, or tax receipts, con- 
fidently believe that no local or state authority can 
interfere with them. They have observed it is 
rarely done. They cannot believe that the govern- 
ment of this country would perpetrate upon them 
a fraud. They therefore feel confident and secure. 
And there is a wide-spread conviction among the 
high-minded votaries and friends of temperance, 
that it is morally wrong, notwithstanding it is legal- 
ly authorized, after, at least, the quasi permission, 
as it is regarded, by the government who has taken 
their money, to prosecute liquor vendors, holding 
these tax receipts, under municipal ordinances or 
state statutes. These revenue tax receipts are very 
generally called "Licenses," not only by the unin- 
formed, but writers, lawyers and law commentators 
even, refer to them as "Licenses." 

The courts of last resort, have uniformly held: 
"That the granting of a license, to sell intoxicants 
by the Federal Government, is a direct usurpation 
of the Police powers reserved to the states." The 



Licenses Unconstitutional 341 

government cannot, therefore, within any state lim- 
its, license the sale of intoxicants. They simply tax 
every one who does sell them. A man may pay his 
government tax to-day and, to-morrow or next 
week, be closed by the state authorities, who, under 
heavy penalties, frequently making it a criminal 
offence, do not permit him to sell another drop. 
Thus he is defrauded of his money by Uncle Sam, 
who knows when he takes this price of blood that 
the licensee cannQt sell intoxicating liquors without 
making himself amenable to the laws of his state 
and liable to heavy penalties, perhaps imprison- 
ment. It is the repugnance of thinking honest peo- 
ple to being a party to this stupendous moral wrong, 
which causes them to hesitate, and involuntarily 
shrink from a contemplated enforcement of a salu- 
tary State statute against this traffic. With this ex- 
ample of wrong and moral turpitude, by our gov- 
ernment, is it a wonder that saloons, with their train 
of evils, flourish? 

That the Federal Government has a constitu- 
tional right to tax a business which the states have 
prohibited and made unlawful, and have a right to 
prohibit and make unlawful, is an absurdity too 
palpable to require discussion. As a matter of fact, 
these tax receipts, issued by Uncle Sam, equitably, 
license the holder to sell intoxicants. Legally, they 
do not. 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE SALOON AN OUTLAW. 

Previous to 1890, it had been decided by the 
courts, notably in the case of Leisy vs. Hardin, 135 
U. S., 100, as well as apparently in other cases 
therein cited, that there being no law of Congress 
prohibiting or even regulating, the commerce in 
intoxicating liquors, including ardent spirits, dis- 
tilled liquors, ale and beer, between the states, that 
this traffic must necessarily be left to the applica- 
tion of the Constitutional provisions regulating 
Interstate Commerce, which permitted, as between 
the states, free and untrammeled commerce in those 
commodities. Until then, they had been considered 
legitimate merchandise. A dealer selling ardent 
spirits in a state where there was no prohibitory 
law, was at liberty to ship them to any state and sell 
them there regardless of the prohibitory laws of 
that state as long as it was sold in the original pack- 
age; and that the right to transport intoxicating 
liquor from one state to another included the right 
of the consignee to sell it, in unbroken packages, at 
the place where the transportation terminated. The 
doctrine thus established by the Supreme Federal 
Tribunal was agcepted as authoritative by the 

343 



The Saloon an Outlaw 343 

State Courts, and the rule was speedily established 
that an importer of intoxicating liquors, into any 
state from another state or country, could, by him- 
self or agents, sell such liquors there as long as they 
remained in the unbroken packages in which they 
existed during their transportation, without regard 
to any laws of the state into which such liquors were 
imported. The jurisdiction of the Federal Courts 
was also invoked by persons who were seeking to 
take advantage of the privilege thus secured to 
them, and who found themselves interfered with 
by attempts to enforce the existing state laws 
against them. The decision in this case, Leisy vs. 
Hardin, that the status of the law was such as to 
allow importers to sell in original packages with- 
out regard to the laws of the state, was followed by 
immediate, widespread, and pernicious results. Its 
effect was, practically, to annul the efforts of cer- 
tain of the states to suppress the traffic in intoxicat- 
ing liquors. The brewers and distillers, recogniz- 
ing the extent of the protection afforded to them by 
this construction of the law, at once established 
agencies in states where prohibition or stringent 
licensing provisions were in force, and there offered 
for sale their products in barrels, kegs, cases, and 
even in conspicuously small bottles; for it had pre- 
viously been decided that there might be no limit 
to their diminutiveness or to the size of an original 
package. States where the greatest advancement 



344 The Saloon an Outlaw 

had previously been made toward the entire sup- 
pression of the traffic, were suddenly overrun with 
saloons selling in original packages, though some 
of them were sufficiently small to afford just an ex- 
hilarating drink, upon the premises, if the pur- 
chaser desired. Others were in half pint, pint and 
quart bottles, as well as in kegs ; and the attempt to 
suppress the traffic was paralyzed by the claim of 
immunity under the constitutional provisions as in- 
terpreted by the courts; there being no Congres- 
sional enactment to prevent. The size of the package 
was no criterion nor barrier to its being an original 
package, provided it was sold in the form and shape 
in which it was imported. So many of the unscru- 
pulous were constantly taking advantage of the 
existing state of the law and defeating the vigilance 
of the state authorities, that relief was sought from 
Congress; and it was to effectually remedy these 
gross abuses that Congress, in 1890, enacted the fol- 
lowing statute, commonly called the "Wilson 
Law:" 

"Be it enacted, etc., That all fermented, distilled, 
or other intoxicating liquors or liquids transported 
into any state or territory or remaining therein for 
use, consumption, sale or storage therein, shall 
upon arriving in such state or territory be subject to 
the operation and effect of the laws of such state or 
territory enacted in the exercise of its police 
powers, to the same extent and in the same manner 



The Saloon an Outlaw 345 

as though such liquids or liquors had been pro- 
duced in such state or territory, and shall not be 
exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced 
therein in original packages or otherwise." — U. S. 
Compiled Statutes, Chapter 2, Page 3177. 

The constitutionality of the above enactment was 
at once assailed by the liquor interests, without suc- 
cess. Its constitutionality was fully established by 
the Supreme Court in the case, In Re Rahrer, 140 
U. S. 545. Thus, by this enactment, the way was 
made clear for the numerous anti-saloon decisions 
by the courts to which we have previously referred ; 
wholly in accordance with the spirit of our institu- 
tions and the purposes for which our government 
was founded. 

His satanic majesty, however, throughout the 
long period of his endeavor to reign, has never ex- 
hibited more cunning in his endeavor to establish 
and maintain his kingdom by means of the liquor 
traffic, than in what transpired after the passage of 
this act and its legality was established by the 
decisions of the Federal Supreme Court. 

The brewers, distillers and wholesale liquor 
dealers at once applied themselves to the task of 
devising ways and means to render this statute in 
effect inoperative. One of their devices, in co- 
operation with railroads, express companies and 
other common carriers, was to deliver a consign- 
ment of liquor to some other person than the osten- 



346 The Saloon an Outlaw 

sible consignee, who, in many instances, would be 
a fictitious person, the matter being carefully pre- 
arranged by the party actually desiring it, render- 
ing it impossible or exceedingly difficult for the 
local authorities to attach the responsibility to any 
one. 

Another device found extremely convenient for 
the purpose of evading the effect of the prohibition 
laws was, to authorize the express agent or some 
agent of the railroad company to collect the price 
to be paid for these importations, not otherwise 
collectible, of what the state authorities had de- 
termined by statute and declared — contraband. 

Still another very common mode adopted by the 
dealers in ardent spirits was, to ship them in inno- 
cent . appearing packages labeled as containing 
some article of universal consumption, wholly in- 
offensive, when in reality, all that the package con- 
tained was these prohibited spirituous liquors. 
Many boxes containing them were labeled 
"Books." And one consignment sent to a town 
where was located a large theological seminary, 
was conspicuously labeled "Bibles." Thus, not- 
withstanding the greatest alertness and ceaseless 
vigilance on the part of the officers of the law, these 
prohibition states were plentifully supplied with 
intoxicating drink and beer, of every quality and 
brand, for all who desired them; imported from 
other states. It was impossible by any enactment 



The Saloon an Outlaw 



347 



on the part of the prohibition states to prevent this. 
These abuses became so flagrant, that Congress, in 
compliance with the repeated and earnest appeal 
of temperance advocates in these prohibition states, 
at its first session of the present year, 1909, for the 
purpose of effectually putting an end to this de- 
fiance of law in prohibited territory, passed the fol- 
lowing salutary enactment: 

Section 238: Any officer, agent, or employee 
of any Railroad Company, Express Company, or 
other Common Carrier, who shall knowingly de- 
liver, or cause to be delivered to any person other 
than the person to whom it has been consigned, un- 
less upon the written order in each instance of the 
bona fide consignee, or to any fictitious person, or 
to any person under a fictitious name, any spiritu- 
ous, vinous, malt, fermented, or other intoxicating 
liquor of any kind which has been shipped from 
one State, Territory, or District of the United 
States, or place noncontiguous to or subject to the 
jurisdiction thereof, into any other State, Territory 
or District of the United States, or place noncon- 
tiguous to or subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 
shall be fined not more than $5,000, and imprisoned 
not more than two years, or both. 

Section 239: Any Railroad Company, Express 
Company, or other Common Carrier, or any other 
person who, in connection with the transportation 
of any spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or 



348 The Saloon an Outlaw 

other intoxicating liquor of any kind, from one 
State, Territory or District of the United States, 
or place noncontiguous to but subject to the juris- 
diction thereof, into any other State, Territory, or 
District of the United States, or place noncontigu- 
ous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, or 
from any foreign country into any State, Territory, 
or District of the United States, or place noncon- 
tiguous to but subject to the jurisdiction thereof, 
shall collect the purchase price or any part thereof, 
before, on, or after delivery, from the consignee, 
or from any other person, or shall in any manner 
act as the agent of the buyer or seller of any such 
liquor, for the purpose of buying or selling or com- 
pleting the sale thereof, saving only in' the trans- 
portation and delivery of the same, shall be fined 
not more than $5,000. 

Section 240: Whoever shall knowingly ship or 
cause to be shipped, from one State, Territory, or 
District of the United States or place noncontigu- 
ous to or subject to the jurisdiction thereof, into 
any other State, Territory, or District of the 
United States, or place noncontiguous to but sub- 
ject to the jurisdiction thereof, or from any foreign 
country into any State, Territory or District of the 
United States, or place noncontiguous to but sub- 
ject to the jurisdiction thereof, any package of or 
package containing any spirituous, vinous, malted, 
fermented, or other intoxicating liquor of any 
kind, unless such package be so labeled on the out- 



The Saloon an Outlaw 349 

side cover as to plainly show the name of the con- 
signee, the nature of its contents, and the quantity 
contained therein, shall be fined not more than 
$5,000; and such liquor shall be forfeited to the 
United States, and may be seized and condemned 
by like proceedings as those provided by law for 
the seizure and forfeiture of property imported 
into the United States contrary to law. — U. S. 
Statutes at Large, Vol. 35, Page 1136. 

["Places noncontiguous to," in the foregoing 
enactment, refer to our more recently acquired 
possessions, as Alaska and our numerous distant 
Islands, over which the government has extended 
its protection.] 

It was this determined persistence in evasion and 
ignoring by subtle expedients the provisions of the 
Wilson Law that resulted in the foregoing enact- 
ment; and similar violations have led to and forced 
upon the States the imperative necessity of laws for 
entire suppression. 

We have seen by the decisions of our courts of 
last resort relating to the liquor traffic, quoted in 
preceding chapters, and by comparison of these 
with the objects for which government was 
formed, as stated by our constitutional foundations 
of government, of the nation and of the states, that 
the interests of the liquor traffic are wholly inim- 
ical and subversive of these objects. Now, every 
American, every lover of our Star Spangled Ban- 
ner and the institutions for which it is the insignia 






350 The Saloon an Outlaw 

is confronted with this proposition : Which shall 
triumph? The Federal Government from its foun- 
dation, to the extent of its authority and influence, 
has bestowed that authority and the weight of its 
influence upon the side of the advocates of temper- 
ance. It must be remembered that each state of 
our Federal Union is an independent sovereignty, 
as absolutely independent as any government, ex- 
cept, so far as it acts, or the enforcement of its en- 
actments may come in conflict with those of the 
rights of some other state in the vast federation. 
And this, and this alone, in addition to general 
measures providing for the protection of all the 
states as a whole, it is the province of the Federal 
Government to regulate. Consequently, the regu- 
lation of the liquor traffic being left entirely within 
the scope of the authority of each state, save so far 
as it relates to Interstate Commerce, without other 
interference on the part of the government, the 
Federal Statutes on the subject are necessarily 
meager and relate almost wholly to what is termed 
Interstate Commerce, that is the authority and 
control necessarily maintained over the traffic pass- 
ing through and from one state to another and to 
and from foreign countries. This authority is con- 
ferred upon Congress by Section Eight of Article 
One of the Constitution of the United States. And 
also, the government regulates the revenue it may 
lawfully derive from the traffic, under what is des- 
ignated "Internal Revenue Laws." 



The Saloon an Outlaw 351 

As early as 1863, nearly half a century ago, in 
Section Sixty-four of these laws, we find the fol- 
lowing : 

"Retail dealers in liquors, including distilled 
spirits, fermented liquors, and wine, of every de- 
scription, shall pay Twenty Dollars for each 
license. 

"Every person who shall sell or offer for sale 
such liquors in less quantities than three gallons at 
one time, to the same purchaser, shall be regarded 
as a retail dealer in liquors under this act. But 
this shall not authorize any spirits, liquors, wines 
or malt liquors to be drank on the premises." 

Since its enactment, no material change has been 
made in its provisions, beyond increasing the tax 
to Twenty-five Dollars; and the quantity distin- 
guishing the wholesale from the retail dealer has 
been enlarged to five gallons. Thus, we see that 
while the Federal Government will not, cannot 
legally, interfere with the sale of intoxicants in the 
various states, yet, it early placed the ban of its dis- 
approval upon the sale of any kind of liquors "To 
be drank on the premises" — on the saloon traffic. 
And whenever the State Laws regulating or pro- 
hibiting the sale of intoxicants have been sought to 
be evaded by recourse to Federal authority, the 
government has promptly made an effort, by pass- 
ing suitable enactments, to put such attempts be- 
yond any pretense of justification. 



352 The Saloon an Outlaw 

This is shown by the stringent enactments of our 
last Congress. 

A Congressional enactment of 1906, is very sig- 
nificant of the policy of the government. In that 
year Congress passed an act by which each col- 
lector of internal revenue was required to keep for 
the use of the public an alphabetical list of the 
names and places of business of all persons apply- 
ing for licenses to sell ardent spirits. And, upon 
application of any prosecuting officer of any state, 
county or municipality he was required to furnish 
a certified copy of this list. — 34 U. S. Statutes at 
Large, Page 387. 

This enactment was of great service to local 
authorities in prohibition states, as it disclosed and 
subjected to prosecution all persons selling under a 
government license in violation of local laws. 

The last session of Congress, also, amended the 
Postal Laws by making it an offense punishable 
with fine and imprisonment to send intoxicating 
liquors of any kind including vinous, malted or 
fermented, through the mails. And as if desirous 
of holding the traffic up to scorn, and suitably 
labeling and relegating it to the moral scavenger 
heap, made the following classification: 

"All kinds of poisons, and all articles and com- 
positions containing poison, and all poisonous an- 
imals, insects and reptiles, and explosives of all 
kinds, inflammable materials, infernal machines, 
and all disease germs or scabs; * * * All 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vans ant. 

THE SALOON AN OUTLAW 
The Supreme Court of the United States sternly calls the attention of 
Uncle Sam that he has been guilty of constant violation of the law. It 
must no longer be disregarded. Page 351 



Thji Saloon an Outlaw 353 

spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other in- 
toxicating liquors of any kind are hereby declared 
to be non-mailable and shall not be deposited in or 
carried through the mails. A penalty for violating 
this enactment is imposed of a fine, not more than 
$ 1,000, or imprisonment of not more than two 
years or both. — U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 35, 
page 1 131. 

Save only in the repealing act, outlined in an- 
other chapter, the Federal Government has 
gone as far in the enactment of laws to aid the 
cause of temperance as its constitutional prerog- 
atives will permit; and sufficient, for all the exi- 
gencies that the present requires and until some 
entirely new phase of the subject presents itself, 
now unforeseen. 

The courts, as we have seen, by reference to their 
decisions in previous chapters have declared the 
Licensing of Saloons UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 
Some of the states have emphasized what is clearly 
implied by the decision of Federal Courts and 
Congressional enactments and plainly in the clear- 
est language declared it CONTRABAND— 
made it an OUTLAW. In view of the recent en- 
actments of Congress now in force, the principal 
features of the statutes of these states, recently, 
enacted, will be sustained by the Highest Tribunal. 
It therefore only remains for all the states to ACT 
— wisely, vigorously. 



CHAPTER XLIL 

BY WHAT MEANS? 

Legislation is demanded, to make assured any 
progress in doing away with the greatest affliction 
of mankind as it affects the United States ; to give 
their just rights to individual states, more than 
modifications must be made in the law which, as 
construed and enforced by the agents of the Federal 
Government, has never been exceeded in bad re- 
sults. Even if its general features remain, if the 
right of Uncle Sam to levy a tax for the manu- 
facture, be retained, there must be such limitation 
as will prevent him from interference with the 
First Great Law of Nature, that of Self-preserva- 
tion. The end to be attained is the first considera- 
tion in the great struggle between right and wrong 
that has begun so earnestly in the United States, 
the END, the changing of what has become a na- 
tion of suffering drunkards into a sane and happy 
people. That is what we are fighting for. As to 
the means, it does not matter what they are, so 
long as they are right. 

What is needed is the right legislation by con- 
gress. Legislation that will give the states the un- 
qualified right to protect themselves, unhampered 

354 



By What Means 355 

by illicit aid or implied moral support given to 
the foe against which, one by one, the states are 
arraying themselves. The Federal statutes impos- 
ing a tax upon the sale of intoxicating liquor as a 
business must be repealed. This tax legitimatizes 
the traffic as a business. But for it, as we have 
seen by the decisions of the courts in a previous 
chapter, the traffic for purposes of a beverage could 
have no legal existence. It has been declared by 
the courts illegal, as having no inherent right to 
exist. Just what legislation should finally be 
adopted by congress to meet all present exigencies 
and those likely to arise and for time to come, re- 
quires great wisdom and statesmanship to deter- 
mine. But nothing can be more apparent than that 
portion of the Internal Revenue Law requiring the 
payment of a tax by those selling intoxicants for 
purposes of a beverage should be, for reasons pre- 
viously stated, repealed by the present congress. 
That portion of the statute is in direct conflict with 
the letter and spirit of these decisions, and places 
the government in an equivocal attitude on this im- 
portant question. The adoption by congress of this 
single simple measure is what is at present de- 
manded, the passage of a bill repealing that por- 
tion of the Internal Revenue Law taxing the liquor 
traffic, a bill here outlined, only tentatively and 
suggestively, as follows: 

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 



356 By What Means 

sentatives of the United States of America in Con- 
gress Assembled, that the act entitled: "An act to 
provide Internal Revenue to support the govern- 
ment, to pay interest on the Public Debt, and for 
other purposes," Approved June, 30th 1864, an( * 
all acts amendatory thereof, be and the same are 
hereby amended, as follows : 

"That each and every section and parts of said 
act imposing a tax upon the sale of spirituous 
liquors known as intoxicants, be, and the same are 
hereby repealed." 

There are hundreds of thousands of voters, good 
partisans, too, who would heartily endorse such 
legislation for the purpose of destroying the im- 
plied dignity and right of protection attaching to 
the liquor business by reason of its being taxed by 
the government. They want temperance. The ob- 
ject of the tremendous movement now in progress 
is to save the country from its greatest curse. A 
business pregnant with such evil cannot rightfully 
be taxed. It should be wiped out. Its object is not 
political ; it is not to foist the movement's leading 
advocates into place. 

Should the present, or an intervening congress 
not pass the repealing enactment suggested, then, 
let either of the two great regnant parties, on the 
eve of the next presidential election, insert in its 
platform a plank pledging the party, if successful, 
to adopt such or a similar repealing measure as in- 



By What Means 357 

dicated in the suggestive bill outlined, and that 
party will enter the campaign with an enormous 
new force to give it impetus. It would win. 

Let every candidate for congress in every state 
(and there are many close districts in the United 
States) be called upon to pledge himself, or re- 
fuse to do so, regarding such legislation, and he 
would soon realize the force of the present mighty 
undercurrent. 

The traffic denied countenance or support 
throughout the country by the general government, 
the legislatures of each and every state will quickly 
follow the example of those that have already done 
so, and banish the saloon business from their midst. 

The means of weaning a nation are at hand, and 
evident. But the weaning of a nation from intox- 
icants is not to be done by mere law-making or the 
abolition of a tax which has been construed into a 
license. The removal of the tax but withdraws the 
general government from the field as a tolerant 
force and leaves the problem to the states. They 
can accomplish what there is to do but not by mere 
law-making. It is the state enforcement of those 
laws which will count. After all, the attitude of 
the general government has been chiefly that of an 
outsider, it has not given direct authority for the 
sale of liquor, though the moral effect of its taxa- 
tion system has been pernicious. Take the situa- 
tion, even as it at present exists, where state pro- 



358 By What Means 

hibition laws are comprehensive and definite as, 
for illustration, in Alabama. What though tax 
receipts are still issued by Uncle Sam and what 
though packages of liquor be brought into the state 
under Interstate Commerce law privileges — what 
happens in Alabama? 

In Alabama it is the duty of the sheriff of any 
county to learn the name of each person in that 
county to whom a government liquor tax receipt 
has been issued. It is his duty to find such person 
and bring him or her before a court. In that court, 
under the statute, the mere possession of the tax 
receipt by an individual is held to be prima facie 
evidence of a violation of the state law. Nothing 
more is required, and the duty of the judge is plain. 
The jury is instructed to bring in a verdict of guilty 
and the punishment of the holder of the tax receipt 
must follow. 

Or, suppose liquor is shipped into the state from 
outside. It must not be taken from the cars. It 
is made an offense against the law for an express 
or freight agent to receive or handle such a pack- 
age. It may not be taken by the consignee, since 
he also is made amenable to the law for such an 
act. If found by an official it must be seized and 
destroyed. 

Furthermore, it is made an offense on the part 
of officials to fail in diligence in the prosecution 
of any violation of the liquor law. This applies 



By What Means 359 

all the way down from court to constable. The 
law was made to have effect. It is having it. Pro- 
hibition is prohibiting in Alabama. The removal 
of the government tax on liquor would, so far as 
the state mentioned is concerned, only simplify 
matters and leave the lawbreakers unsustained by 
the moral effect of the receipt they have claimed 
implies a license. 

The attitude of the liquor interest in the United 
States has been largely one of bravado. It has dur- 
ing recent years presumed too much upon the effect 
of its blustering front. It is not as strong as it 
imagines. The flourishing of governmental tax re- 
ceipts will no longer intimidate. In a state where 
well-considered prohibition laws prevail, all oppo- 
sition by the liquor dealers must crumble into noth- 
ingness when local officials are worthy of their 
places. There is the whole crux of the thing. 
Everything depends upon the quality of those whose 
duty it is to enforce the law. In a sense, the com- 
plaint from any state that the Federal Government 
interferes with its enforcement of its laws is a con- 
fession of weakness. The Federal Government 
never interferes directly. Certain Federal statutes 
may, indirectly, aid the extension or continuation 
of the liquor traffic, but prohibition will always 
prohibit, when officials are honest and in earnest. 
There is no evasion of this fact, for the right of a 
state to make its own laws is undisputed, they can 



360 By What Means 

be so made as to provide thoroughly for the accom- 
plishment of their ends and all depends upon their 
execution. In states where a prohibition law exists 
and where officials do their duty temperance will 
prevail. It remains for the people neither to select 
nor endorse officials of any other kind. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

"OF, FOR, AND BY THE PEOPLE." 

"A government of, for and by the people-' was 
the splendid definition given of the proper conduct 
of the affairs of this republic by him whose memory 
is dearest to Americans. Is it now a government 
such as described? 

Is it a government "of" the people? Is license 
such a government? In this republic of ours there 
are more than a million places for the vending of 
intoxicating beverages, ranging from swell clubs 
to the vilest dens and dead-falls, wfhiskey saloons, 
rum-shops, gin-mills, beer tunnels, and brothels, 
with all their adjuncts and accessories. Of these 
are places that with lewd pictures, sporting bulle- 
tins, and gilded furnishings, entice and entrap 
young men; places that with easy-chairs, side- 
rooms, card tables, tickers, and other such attrac- 
tions, lure the middle-aged; places that with "the 
biggest glass for a nickel" induce the laborer to 
visit the place which is called "the poor man's 
club," where unavoidably he is thrown into the 
company of thieves, sluggers, and hobos, and where 
he squanders, or is robbed of, the hard-earned 
money that his wife and children sorely need for 

361 



362 Of, For and By the People 

bread and clothing. Is this a government "of" 
the people? Is there restraint upon them for their 
own good? 

The central power is supposed to exert its in- 
fluence most directly and impressively in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, for which Congress makes all 
the local laws. Under the shadow of the Capitol, 
if anywhere, the people should be governed well. 
Liberty should not degenerate into license there. 
Yet, notwithstanding the wave of prohibition which 
is sweeping over the country, and the insistence on 
a more law-abiding mode of life in certain States, 
the District of Columbia continues "wet," and 
saloons are open on all sides, with the attendant con- 
sequence of added lawlessness. The supervision 
which tolerates and even encourages such a condi- 
tion is hardly a strict and beneficial government 
"of" the people. 

A government "by" the people, as its very phrase- 
ology implies, is one in which the people govern 
themselves, enacting their own laws for their own 
welfare and being unhindered and unhampered in 
the enforcement of such laws. Does such a de- 
sirable condition of affairs exist in the United 
States, under present relations between the Federal 
Government and the several commonwealths? 
Hardly. 

Various States of the Union have adopted pro- 
hibition laws, and are seeking to enforce them. 



Of, For and By the People 363 

Are they unembarrassed in the task? Are not tax 
receipts, which are construed as licenses for the 
violation of such laws, issued to those who would 
thwart the object of the legislation described? Are 
the Interstate Commerce Laws utilized as a shield 
by those who would ship intoxicants into a prohibi- 
tion State? Is it a government "by" the people 
when the laws the people have enacted cannot be 
enforced? No! under such circumstances, it is not 
a government "by" the people. 

Is it a government "for" the people? A govern- 
ment "for" the people is one every act of which 
is for the promotion of their welfare, one conducted 
broadly, beneficently, and firmly, with regard for 
the greatest good of the greatest number in the 
present and in the future. That involves the ex- 
ercise of a paternal watchfulness and authority in 
preventing whatever may affect injuriously the 
health and happiness and general prosperity of the 
people for whom the government exists. A plague, 
any present or threatening evil, must be stamped 
out or averted. Under this government, supposably 
"for" the people, is such danger encountered as it 
should be? There exists not an intelligent and 
well-informed human being on the face of the earth 
who does not know what is the greatest plague 
which afflicts mankind, nor is there an intelligent 
American who does not know that its ravages are 
most extending and destructive here. There is no 



j 




364 Of, For and By the People 

question or dispute about it. A plague! Never 
another like it has existed anywhere. It is no ex- 
aggeration to compare it, literally, with all the 
other plagues of history, to their belittlement. It 
is no foolish or fantastic simile. The rattle of the 
death-carts and the wails of the mourners may be 
heard from ocean to ocean. It kills or cripples 
millions, and leaves the seeds of its growth in the 
coming generation. There is no query nor denial. 
The effects are before all eyes. The statistics of 
alcohol's destructiveness are open to all who will 
read. Is a government which allows such woe's 
continuance one paternal and beneficent, and "for" 
the people? 

There is sometimes voiced an opposition to the 
"centralization" of our government, and even the 
difficulty encountered by the States in enforcing 
their own prohibition laws has been quoted as an 
illustration of too greatly interfering Federal au- 
thority. As a matter of fact, it is not "centraliza- 
tion" but apathy which is the fault. There should 
at least be logic in a governmental attitude. If it 
battles with one plague, it should do so with an- 
other. Cholera, yellow fever, opium, cocaine — 
all these diseases and these drugs are relatively 
petty enemies which are met and practically over- 
come. At any rate, they have been encountered 
vigorously. To pay attention to the ever-present 
and more devastating adversary would seem a thing 



Of, For and By the People 365 

of greater moment. There is no occasion for quib- 
bling over what is allowable in congressional legis- 
lation. There is no obstacle in the way of law- 
making for their good which the people cannot re- 
move. Conditions have obtained which are intol- 
erable, and they can be changed only by direct and 
sensible and what are self-evident methods. That 
the greatest of existing evils in the United States 
can be combated on even terms, Congress must take 
certain action, with the consent and upon the de- 
mand of the people, "for" whose benefit the govern- 
ment is carried on. The consent and demand are 
being expressed now as never before. At no time 
in the past history of the country has the issue on the 
liquor question been so vital as now. The clamor 
of the uprising for self-protection will increase. 
There is abundant cause. The nation is beginning 
as last to comprehend what it is suffering and 
wherein lies the method of release. The means at 
hand must be utilized; these means, certain Con- 
gressional enactments, the people call for. They 
are not worrying over "centralization." They want 
only a little less accidental interference with the 
accomplishment of State wishes, and, on the other 
hand, a little more paternalism in a practical way. 
They want the government "for" them in the 
broadest sense of the word. 

Who gave utterance to that glorious expression 
which has become a nation's shibboleth — "A gov- 



366 Of, For and By the People 

ernment of the people, for the people, and by the 
people"? Whose words on any subject connected 
with the country's welfare are cherished today as 
embodying the essence of wisdom and faithful far- 
seeing patriotism? What would Lincoln say of 
the policy — allowable, perhaps, in war-times, when 
the republic was struggling for its life — now con- 
tinued of licensing the liquor traffic for the sake 
of gain? What attitude did the great emancipator 
and martyr take on the liquor question? Surely 
no authority could be more unquestioned, none 
whose direction could be followed more implicitly 
and safely. What did Lincoln say upon the sub- 
ject, which, more than at any other time in its 
history, is now commanding the earnest attention 
of the American people? He did not fear to speak. 
Consider these expressions of the greatest of citi- 
zens, given in the order of their date : 

"The members of this (Sangamon County) tem- 
perance society mutually pledge themselves to each 
other not to use any intoxicating liquors in any 
form, as a beverage, nor to make, vend, or in any 
way provide the same for use by others." — Signed 
by A. Lincoln, January 19, 1838. 

"What a noble ally this temperance revolution 
to the cause of political freedom! With such an 
aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every 
son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow- 
quenching draughts of perfect liberty." — Abraham 
Lincoln, February 22, 1842. 



Of, For and By the People 367 

"The one victory we can ever call complete will 
be that one which proclaims that there is not one 
slave or one drunkard on the face of God's green 
earth. Recruit for this victory." — Lincoln to 
George E. Pickett, February 22, 1842. 

"Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold 
our names from the temperance cause as for hus- 
bands to wear their wives' bonnets to church, and 
instances will be just as rare in the one case as 
the other." — Abraham Lincoln, February 22, 1842. 

"Let all the friends of temperance and of human- 
ity unite as a great brotherhood, and submit to sac- 
rifices of money, time, and talents, that the people 
may be thoroughly informed." — Abraham Lin- 
coln, January 23, 1853. 

"The liquor-seller who has been denounced as 
the only sinner has been only acting as their (the 
people's) authorized agent in filling the public 
treasury at the expense of the ruin of the liquor- 
drinker, and the poverty and misery of his family." 
— Abraham Lincoln, January 23, 1853. 

"In the advocacy of the cause of temperance, you 
have a friend and sympathizer in me." — Abraham 
Lincoln, September 29, 1863. 

"When I was a young man, I made temperance 
speeches, and to this day I have never, by my ex- 
ample, belied what I then said." — Abraham Lin- 
coln, September 29, 1863. 

"Intemperance is one of the greatest, if not the 



368 Of, For and By the People 

very greatest, of all evils among mankind" — Abra- 
ham Lincoln, September 29, 1863. 

Such was the attitude of Abraham Lincoln. The 
excessive war tax on the manufacture and sale of 
intoxicants, with the accompanying receipt which 
implied a license, was a desperate measure allow- 
able only in the stress of a great emergency. It 
countenanced the use of liquor as the use of strych- 
nine may be countenanced, to keep up the beating 
of an imperiled heart. But, with the emergency, 
passed the excuse. Tolerance and recognition of 
the liquor traffic had no justification after the close 
of the war. The government receipts were sufficient 
for its needs before the convulsion of the War of 
the Rebellion, would have been so afterward, and 
would be so now, through other channels, were the 
income from alcohol to be done away with. Can 
any one conceive, had the great President lived, 
that the governmental countenance of an evil vast 
as that of the liquor traffic would have been con- 
tinued? Would encouragement of the national 
blight have been continued under him who said, 
"The only victory we can ever call complete will 
be that one which proclaims that there is not one 
slave or one drunkard on the face of the earth"? 
Let but the affairs of the United States be con- 
ducted as Abraham Lincoln would direct, and we 
should indeed have "A government of the People, 
for the People, and by the People" ! 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE NATIONAL VITALITY. 

"If youth could only know, if old age only 
could" is, perhaps, the most reflectively excellent 
of all the sayings originating among the bright 
French people. It tells the whole story of what 
exists as to vitality and accomplishment. If youth 
and all could know old age could do that of which 
it is now incapable, and especially is this true of the 
American nation where the springs of health and 
force are so drained by alcohol. The waste and the 
means of conservation of the national vitality have 
been made a subject of especial and serious study 
by the Committee of One Hundred on national 
health, the American body which, working in con- 
nection with governmental forces, ranks among the 
most effective agencies in the world in considera- 
tion of and advice as to what is best for the mental 
and bodily welfare of human beings. Its bulletin 
30, prepared by Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale 
University, contains a plain and powerful presen- 
tation of the degree to which intoxicating drinks 
are reducing the vitality of the people of the 
United States, considered as a whole, and so, of 
course, affecting gravely their output of all that is 

369 




370 The National Vitality 

best for mankind. Here, backed by figures and 
data indisputable, are some of the simple con- 
clusions reached. 

There is such a thing as breadth as well as length 
of life. Everyone knows that the life of a very old 
person or an invalid, however long, is but a narrow 
stream. In the case of the very old person, how- 
ever, this does not mean that the breadth of life has 
not been sufficient to make up a splendid average. 
Chevreul, the distinguished French chemist, who 
died at the age of 103, lived a life of great activity 
and usefulness as a laboratory experimenter, as in- 
dustrial chemist, as university professor and as a 
writer and lecturer. It is said of Alexander Von 
Humboldt, who was 90 at the time of his death, 
that he had not only lived twice as long as others 
in years, but that in work accomplished he had 
lived twice as much per day, thus enjoying four 
times the average lifetime. The very old man has 
rarely much to be ashamed of. It is the one who 
has cut down his own vitality who is guilty of a 
crime to himself and to the people about him. 
This is the fault and crime of the hundreds of thou- 
sands in the United States who drink intoxicating 
liquors. They are reducing fearfully the strength 
and capacity of the people, taken altogether. 

National vitality is measured by the number of 
persons who are in absolute good health and capa- 
ble of doing all which is possible for them natur- 
ally. 



The National Vitality 371 

It is estimated that for every person who dies 
some one is sick enough to be incapacitated for 
active work for a period of two years. This is the 
mathematical relation between disease and death. 
Leaving the 200,000 or more yearly deaths from 
alcoholism out of the question, those incapacitated 
by it from doing anywhere near their best may be 
guessed at by the same ratio. Alcohol makes them 
the easy object of assault of all the diseases. The 
mortality statistics of the last census show that in 
the registration area of the United States pneu- 
monia is responsible for 1 1 per cent of all deaths. 
Pneumonia is now known to be a communicable 
disease, the germ of which is very widely distrib- 
uted. In the meantime, the best protection against 
it is to "keep in condition." It is known, too, that 
while the germ of pneumonia is the exciting cause, 
the greatest predisposing cause is acute or chronic 
alcoholism. It is known that the number of per- 
sons in the United States constantly suffering from 
tuberculosis, or consumption as it is generally 
called, reaches at least 500,000. Of course all do 
not die. Of the total number probably about half 
are totally incapacitated, while the remainder are 
able to earn about half the ordinary wages. The 
loss to the country may be easily computed. And 
as to what gives consumption such a hold the cause 
is attributable to alcoholism in about the same de- 
gree as with pneumonia. Yet the report of the sub- 



372 The National Vitality 

committee of fifty to investigate the liquor problem 
shows that of the adult males in this country only 
twenty per cent are total abstainers and that five 
per cent are positively intemperate in that they 
drink to excess. Of the remaining seventy-five per 
cent, "the majority, probably at least fifty per cent 
of the whole, are occasional drinkers, while the re- 
maining twenty-five per cent might perhaps be 
classed as regular moderate drinkers." This is the 
report of the best informed and most careful and 
conservative body ever called upon to study the 
aspects of the liquor question in the United States. 
Think of what it means as showing how drink is 
cutting down the national worth and productive- 
ness and general well-being! 

Here are figures which are startling. The sum 
of $700 is considered by political economists as a 
safe maximum for the average yearly earnings of 
workers of all grades, from day laborers up to rail- 
road presidents. With our present population, 
there are always about 3,000,000 persons in the 
United States on the sick list. Of these the larger 
proportion are older than the average of all the 
people but according to the tables of the famous 
statistician, William Farr, of England, very close to 
a third or about 1^000,000 persons are in the work- 
ing period of life. Assuming that the average 
earnings in the working period are $700, we find 
over $500,000,000 as the minimum loss of earnings. 



The National Vitality 373 

Of the proportion who are incapacitated because 
of drinking, the estimate has already been given. 
The cost of medical attendance and care, the aver- 
age expenditure for illness and death, according to 
the statistics of the Commissioner of Labor, 
amount to $27 per annum. This is for working- 
men's families only. But even this figure, if 
applied to the 17,000,000 families in the United 
States, would make the total bill for caring 
for illness and death $460,000,000. The real 
cost may be more than twice this sum. The 
sum of the cost of illness, loss of wages and cost of 
care, is thus $960,000,000. It is estimated by the 
committee making a study of the subject that at 
least half a billion could be saved from the present 
cost of illness were men to live as they should. 
This added to the loss by preventable deaths of 
probable earnings of a billion gives at least 
$1,500,000,000 of preventable waste. This does 
not include the added losses from inefficient work 
due to drunkenness or other vicious habits nor does 
it include the cost of "undue fatigue," as the scient- 
ists call it which drink induces in its victims. The 
closest estimates of these careful reasoners are that 
sickness and death in the United States cost 
$3,000,000,000 annually, of which at least a third 
is regarded as preventable — $1,000,000,000 lost 
yearly because of health-wrecking habits! It must 
be remembered, too, that these enormous figures 



374 The National Vitality 

are quite apart to the more than a billion and a half 
of dollars expended yearly in the purchase of al- 
coholic drinks nor the hundreds of millions spent 
in the maintenance of prisons, insane asylums and 
almshouses. 

One of the most diligent and capable students of 
the effect of alcohol upon humanity is Dr. W. H. R. 
Rivers, of St. John's College, Cambridge. Espe- 
cially has he made a study of its results in produc- 
ing muscular and mental fatigue and his conclu- 
sions are instructive. As to muscular effort, the 
deduction is unavoidable that alcohol is prejudi- 
cial to the capacity for work and in no way helps 
to diminish the effects of fatigue. It is the same 
way mentally. This applies of course not to those 
who are accounted drunkards but to those with 
whom the use of alcohol is in any way habitual. 
In other words, the regular drinker cannot possibly 
do as much with his body or with his mind as he 
could if he abstained totally. Muscular fatigue, it 
is now decided, is due to the circulation of 
"fatigue" poisons in the blood. This has been 
strikingly shown by Weishardt and others in ex- 
periments on dogs; when blood is transfused 
from an exhausted dog to a frisky one the latter im- 
mediately wilts and becomes fatigued like the 
former, although he has not exerted himself in the 
least. In order to reduce fatigue we should keep 
down the fatigue poisons, of which alcohol is the 
most immediately active and the worst. 



The National Vitality 375 

Alcohol, if taken during mental work, sends 
the blood to the brain, gives a fanciful activity 
there for a short time, followed by sluggishness, 
depression and non-productiveness. This is the 
case even with one who does not take alcohol habit- 
ually. With the regular moderate drinker the evil 
is much worse. The effect of alcohol taken into the 
system steadily is certain to be cumulative. The 
regular drinker is never, under any circumstances, 
the man he might have been. He has decreased 
his capacity for accomplishment, and what the ag- 
gregate decrease in vitality and ability in a nation 
with as many millions of drinkers as there are in 
the United States is made evident in the preceding 
figures supplied by the best authorities in exist- 
ence. 

The almost incredible cost has been made appar- 
ent. The sum of it all is that, nationally, we are 
becoming stunted and dwarfed in being to an ex- 
tent we do not comprehend, weakened and flabby, 
because of the use of alcohol. And this is but an 
item in the account against it! 



CHAPTER XLV. 

EXPLODED FALLACIES. 

It is proof of advancement in intelligence on a 
subject of world-wide interest that many supersti- 
tions regarding alcohol have utterly disappeared. 
When cocaine was first discovered and its remark- 
able effects upon the nerves made known, it was 
hailed as a killer of pain which was not dangerous 
and physicians were numerous among its victims. 
Not much time was required for the discovery of its 
sinister qualities and the adhesion of its deadly grip 
whenever its use became a habit. Now it is a thing 
banned by the law. Alcohol maintained a fictitious 
reputation longer. For a time after the discov- 
ery of the process of distillation it was even called 
"aqua vitae," the water of life, and its excessive use 
not looked upon as always harmful to the body. 
The ancient writers, while speaking regretfully of 
the excesses of all kinds induced by drink, did not 
much consider its deteriorating effect upon the sys- 
tem. It was not known how certainly and seriously 
it impaired the physical organs of its consumers or 
that its effect upon the mind might easily be per- 
manent. It was looked upon as a sort of elixir, 
strengthening and vivifying. Men would take it 

376 



Exploded Fallacies 377 

when called upon to perform some great physical 
task or even on occasions when liable to be sub- 
jected to a mental strain. With increasing knowl- 
edge the myths concerning liquor have been one by 
one abandoned. Those who drink now do so with 
the knowledge that no good results will follow. 

One of the most absurd beliefs for a long time 
held as among the virtues of liquor was that it 
could be used to advantage to offset the bad effects 
of climate. Especially was it regarded as a pro- 
tection against cold and this particular theory is 
still sometimes held by the uninformed. As a mat- 
ter of fact he who resorts to drink for protection 
against the cold does so only at his peril. Arctic 
explorers know the danger of drink in high lati- 
tudes and the experience of tens of thousands since 
the lure of gold has drawn men to Alaska has 
brought more general enlightenment on the sub- 
ject. Of one group of explorers the story is espe- 
cially tragic. They were compelled, after a toil- 
some day to make camp in an exposed and uncom- 
fortable situation. Some took no stimulant and 
turned in cold and miserable. Others took some 
whiskey in moderation and retired warmer, but still 
uncomfortable. The rest of the party indulged 
freely in drink and retired oblivious to all cold and 
discomfort. In the morning those who refused al- 
cohol arose refreshed and well. The second class, 
those who indulged moderately, awoke cold and 



378 Exploded Fallacies 

wretched. The third class did not awake at all. 
They were dead. 

Only less general at one time was the belief that 
liquor was beneficial in a hot climate. The brandy 
and soda consumed by Englishmen who went to 
India would have floated a small navy. The re- 
sult was that many a fine fellow who went abroad 
to seek his fortune never returned to England with 
it; while of those who survived and ended their 
lives at home, the ruined livers and lost digestions 
have become famous even in literature. 

"Malaria" has long been a most convenient 
word to use in connection with drinking. 
"Whiskey will keep off malaria every time," we are 
informed and the sedulousness with which the pos- 
sible sufferer from miasma provides himself for the 
emergency has been particularly noticeable. The 
trouble with the reasoning is that drink will not 
"keep off" anything. The only effect the alcohol 
can have will be to weaken and so render one who 
uses it more liable to harm from unhealthful sur- 
roundings. Quinine is worth more in the swamp 
than whiskey. The companion theory to that re- 
garding malaria, the once popular notion that 
strong drink protected one exposed to a contagious 
disease, is also exploded. A dulling of the sensibil- 
ity is not defense. Taking a drink under such cir- 
cumstances has been well compared to "chloro- 
forming the watchdog to protect the house from 
burglars." 



Exploded Fallacies 379 

The idea that those engaged in hard muscular 
labor are helped by drink and that beer adds to the 
vigor of the workman's arm has been proved a 
simple fallacy. It has been scientifically demon- 
strated that all forms of alcoholic liquor decrease 
muscular ability and activity and that exhaustion 
comes soonest to the intemperate. To the ignorant 
and self-indulgent this regard for drink as a source 
of strength is still existent, but it does not appear 
that the beer-drinking masses from the old world 
are, as a rule, the physical equals of the abstinent. 
Bloatedness is not an indication of vigor. This is 
being understood, outside the uneducated masses 
referred to, who inherited the false belief and are 
deficient in the reasoning faculty. 

Not less grotesque than the delusion as to the 
strengthening power of alcohol is the fancy that it 
aids in the assimilation of food. Never was a 
greater error. It retards digestion. Alcohol is a 
preservative. Dead matter .remains unchanged in 
it for any length of time, and immediate change, 
not preservation, is what is required for the food 
taken into the stomach to sustain life and replace 
the constantly rejected tissue. The headache the 
morning after the banquet where liquors were in- 
dulged in freely is the result not only of the drink 
directly but of its interference with the functions 
of the stomach and digestive tracts. 

Considered as a food liquor is an absurdity, yet 



380 Exploded Fallacies 

formerly it was thought of as having at least some 
little value in that respect. Especially for beer has 
the claim been made that it has sustaining qualities. 
This illusion has been dissipated by analysis and 
experiment. One would have to drink enormously 
of beer to get the food equivalent of an egg 
or a glass of milk. Beer is no better than whiskey. 
The theory is, or should be, dead that the solution 
of the drink problem will be found in the more 
general use of fermented liquors. The great anti- 
alcoholic reform now sweeping over beer-drinking 
Germany is proof in the right direction. There is 
no food in fermented liquors and their effect upon 
mind and body is as bad as that of stronger drinks 
to the consumption of which they frequently lead. 

There is an ancient proverb, "wine is the milk of 
old age," and time was when it was accepted as 
having a foundation in fact and that it was not a 
bad thing for elderly people to add liquors to their 
diet. Sir Henry Thompson, one of the greatest phy- 
sicians of the century, at the age of 82, proved by 
actual experiment that the old adage was false and 
mischievous. It is recognized now that alcohol is 
as bad for a man in his old age as it is at any other 
time. 

From the time when the ancients poured liba- 
tions to the gods to the later period when they "let 
the toast go round and slighted Barbara Allen," 
and even to the later day when those ordinarily 



Exploded Fallacies 381 

temperate made concession to a custom and pre- 
pared the punch bowl for those making the regula- 
tion calls of New Year's Day, the idea has some- 
how prevailed of a connection between the use of 
strong drink and the exhibition of a sentiment of 
regard. Why or when or how such an idea orig- 
inated no man can tell. From time immemorial 
its effect has been too often just the opposite of the 
conception. It has changed all relations, made 
suspicion follow trust and feud come after friend- 
ship. Slowly, very slowly, the fact has dawned 
upon the world and the association in the popular 
mind of drink and good alliance and relationship 
is disappearing. The gods to whom libations once 
were poured have retired permanently from busi- 
ness; Barbara Allen no longer causes her lover's 
death because, carousing with his friends, he fails 
to shout her name aloud and wave his goblet round 
his head ; the little table in the reception room no 
longer invariably bears the punch bowl, nor do 
fair hands dispense enticing drink to callers on New 
Year's Day, callers, some of whom may thus obtain 
their first taste of alcohol, and more important still, 
at the great banquet where men of brains and action 
meet, to consider, it may be, the beginning of some 
great work or to endorse or oppose a considered 
public policy affecting the general good, it is no 
longer considered absolutely necessary that wine 
should always flow like water, and muddled joy be 



382 Exploded Fallacies 

unrestrained. It is recognized that mutual and 
productive good understanding is not secured by 
any exhilaration or inflation of the moment, and 
that just in proportion to its deliberative sanity is 
made attainable whatever object for which a ban- 
quet may be held. The rule applies quite as prac- 
tically when the occasion is one of congratulation 
and jubilation. It is realized that good wishes ex- 
pressed soberly are genuine. 

The fact simply is that the old beliefs and fancies 
which condoned the use of stimulants are dying out 
with increased enlightenment. Society, knowing 
more, instinctively protects itself. We no longer 
hang a horseshoe above the door as a protection 
against evils. We have learned a better way. 
Now, to quote a distinguished authority, from the 
scientific standpoint society regards the drunkard 
as a diseased and poisoned lunatic, and so he is. 
The larger number of crimes are the work of men 
who are under the influence of liquor. The drunk- 
ard becomes a social outcast in proportion as the 
sentiment against drinking is developed in the 
public mind. The inebriate is held to be morally 
responsible because he voluntarily takes the poison. 
But in this view of the case, society at large is re- 
sponsible for all the crimes that the drunkard com- 
mits, and for the disease of inebriety. Society at 
large is responsible for all preventable diseases, in- 
cluding inebriety. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

WHAT $1,607,028,346 MIGHT DO. 

The figures have been given repeatedly in these 
pages showing the amount spent for intoxicating 
drinks in this country in a single year. The sum, 
$1,607,028,346 has become unpleasantly familiar, 
but what it represents can hardly become clear to 
the mind without an effort. Only by comparisons 
can the potencies of such an enormous sum be 
realized. Let us consider certain relative sums. 

The most valuable crop raised in the United 
States is corn. The report of the Secretary of 
Agriculture for 1908 gives the value of the corn 
crop of that year as $1,615,000,000, certainly an 
astounding showing, unequaled in any other coun- 
try of the world. Yet we did in a year what was 
equivalent to throwing away bur greatest crop, in 
the production of which millions of acres were cul- 
tivated and hundreds of thousands of men engaged. 
The difference between $1,607,028,346 and 
$1,615,000 000 is not worthy of attention. If the 
chief crop produced here in 1908 had not been 
raised at all we should, had we refrained from al- 
coholic drinks, be just as well off. It is true that 
the crop figures and those of the drink bill are not 



384 What $1,607,028,346 Might Do 

for the same year, but they are close enough, rela- 
tively, for all practical purposes. It is as if the 
United States threw away its amazing corn crop 
every year. 

Our wheat crop is a wonderful thing. It is suffi- 
cient for our own use, with a huge surplus to be 
shipped abroad. We help to supply the outside 
world with bread; millions of dollars change 
hands daily in the traffic and there is clamor in a 
thousand grain pits. In the king of cereals is one 
of our greatest sources of prosperity. The crop 
raised in 1908 was valued at $620,000,000. We 
spent more than twice that sum in making our- 
selves more or less drunk! 

The value of animals and animal products for 
1908, is placed by the Secretary of Agriculture at 
$800,000,000. Twice that sum we expended in re- 
ducing our health and general prosperity and hap- 
piness by the consumption of spirituous liquors. 

There are other comparisons which might be 
made in connection with the value of animal prod- 
ucts yearly. Meat has become expensive in the 
United States. Hundreds of thousands of families 
cannot afford to eat it regularly. Yet the ordinary 
beef producing animal can be raised at a cost of, say 
$20. There are something over 80,000,000 people 
in the United States and 80,000,000 will go into 
1,607,028,346 twenty times, with a surplus. In 
other words, for the sum annually expended for 



What $1,607,028,346 Might Do 385 

liquor, every man, woman and child could be sup- 
plied with a whole beef apiece every year. Talk 
about meat in the family! 

Or, referring to the cattle again, supposing them 
to average six and one-half feet in length — which 
may or may not be just the proper estimate — 80,- 
000,000 would make a line 520,000,000 feet long. 
There are 5,280 feet in a mile and that would make 
98,295 miles long of beeves. It would, could it be 
supported in the water, make a bridge across the 
Atlantic and connecting us with Europe 3,000 miles 
long, and over 32 beeves, or somewhere between 50 
and 100 feet, wide. That is the bridge the Ameri- 
can people drink away in the consumption of beer, 
whiskey and other intoxicants every year. Such 
similes and comparisons may appear grotesque and 
somewhat strained, but they serve, at least, the pur- 
pose of making clearer the awful cost of drink in 
its sheer money waste, to say nothing of its infinitely 
graver consequences. 

Hosts of the American people are not clad as they 
should be. Some can afford to dress respectably; 
others, if somewhat meanly, at least in a way to 
provide against extremes of temperature, while for 
the rest are rags and tatters. The poor shiver in 
their thin garments when winter comes and there 
are deaths from freezing. A warm, well-appearing 
and serviceable suit of clothes may be bought for 
twenty dollars anywhere — the average suit does not 



386 What $1,607,028,346 Might Do 

cost as much as that. The $1,607,028,346, more or 
less, but steadily increasing, which is paid out yearly 
for what the brewers and distillers make and which 
the people drink would purchase a $20 suit of 
clothes for every one of our 80,000,000 people, old 
and young, and there would remain a surplus of 
$7,028,346 to be expanded on hats and shoes! What 
a difference in our condition were every human 
being in the country thus provided for! 

The average house throughout the United States 
does not cost as much as one thousand dollars. The 
excessive cost of some is offset by the cheapness of 
the myriads of small frame structures. For $1,607,- 
028,346 could be built 1,607,028 houses worth a 
thousand dollars each. Imagine a city containing 
over a million and a half of houses ! It would be 
larger than New York and Chicago combined ! All 
the fires and earthquakes in all history have not de- 
stroyed so many dwellings, yet we drink down such 
a city every year. Our running account with alco- 
hol is large ! 

The total internal revenue receipts of the United 
States for the year ending June 30, 1909, were, ac- 
cording to the report of the Commissioner, $246,- 
212,719. This sum is included in $1,607,028,346 
six times, with a remainder of $129,732,032. Dur- 
ing the fiscal year referred to, there was collected on 
distilled spirits $128,315,181 and on fermented liq- 
uors $56,303,496, a total of $184,618,677. This sum 



What $1,607,028,346 Might Do 387 

is included in $1,607,028,346 eight times, with a 
remainder of $130,078,922. That is, the American 
people expended for intoxicants more than six times 
the entire receipts from Internal Revenue Depart- 
ment and more than eight times the entire receipts 
from the taxation of distilled and fermented liquors. 
Those are figures which cover the whole ground. 
A multimillionare, some time ago, gave the sum 
of $1,000,000 to be utilized in the extermination of 
the hookworm, the cause of a disease which has 
resulted in hosts of deaths and has made life hardly 
worth the living for myriads who have not been 
afflicted fatally. Other rich men have contributed 
great sums to be expended in the eradication of 
consumption and still others have been generous in 
their contributions for the purpose of ridding hu- 
manity of the fatal cancer. They have done well, 
according to their resources and helpful intent, but 
their contributions are not sufficient. There is little 
doubt in the minds of the wisest that, with abun- 
dance of money at hand for all research and in- 
vestigation and for experiment with all promising 
means for prevention or cure, the time might soon 
come when these dreaded diseases would practi- 
cally disappear. Suppose that the $1,607,028,346 
expended annually for drink were spent, instead, 
in battling with humanity's greatest foes. That 
sum would provide one thousand six hundred great 
institutions, each with an income of over a million 



388 What $1,607,028,346 Might Do 

a year to aid in the obliteration of the diseases so 
affecting us, diseases the deaths and suffering from 
which, and the fear of which, add more to the gloom 
of life than can be told in words. Here, again, can 
be seen what might be accomplished with (that 
$1,607,028,346 which is now expended in the cause 
of death and disease, in filling the prisons, alms- 
houses and insane asylums, and in adding generally 
to the burden we have to bear. 

All these comparisons suggest themselves to those 
who have studied this great question. They are 
made here, because they are but commonplace and 
irrefutable and can be understood and appreciated 
by all who read. Unfortunately there are hosts of 
people who have never thought of them, who have 
not much considered what is going on in the world 
of drink and what its results are, merely because 
they have not been sufficiently informed. It is not 
every family which has suffered from the acts of a 
drinking member or been so situated in any way as 
to know the ravages which the use of intoxicants is 
causing. Yet these are the very people who are 
opposed to sin and suffering and who, once aware 
of its vast existence and of the means to battle with 
it, would be first to enlist actively in the war for its 
suppression. It is for the information of such as 
these that the preceding figures have been given and 
the evident comparisons so made. 



CHAPTER XLVIL 

THE DAWN. 

For the abolishment of the liquor traffic in the 
United States is working a more tremendous force 
than has ever been possessed by any regular organ- 
ization, however efficient such organizations may 
have been or potent in inducing the condition that 
exists. It is the liquor manufacturers and dealers 
themselves who have wrought what will prove their 
own destruction. Insolent, arrogant, overbearing, 
counting themselves the dominating force, politi- 
cally and otherwise, especially in the cities, they 
have so obtruded themselves as to become not only 
a public menace but a public nuisance to an extent 
which has aroused exasperation and called in- 
creased attention to the magnitude of the evil they 
accomplish. Every movement for the betterment 
of the community has been opposed by them. The 
debasement of public sentiment is to their interest 
and they know it, and act accordingly. They are, 
in their own interests, partners with vice. Through 
them the white slave trade flourishes, gambling 
places are afforded and criminals find convenient 
harborage. They want no reform. Reform of any 
kind involves, directly or indirectly, an injury to 

389 



390 The Dawn 

their business. The liquor interests, "f rom the dog- 
gery to the trust," have fought bitterly every move- 
ment for the protection of the community. In the 
beginning, they opposed with all their force the 
placing of any tax whatsoever on the production 
or sale of liquor. Every increase of license any- 
where was resisted by them. Sunday closing laws 
are an offense in their eyes and something to be dis- 
regarded. In California they dared infamously to 
insist upon what they called their right to sell 
liquor to minors and known drunkards. The five- 
mile laws, local option and, above all, state-wide 
prohibition — these they array themselves against 
with all their might. They have sought to bribe 
or bully legislatures. Now, with the rage of des- 
peration, they are preparing to fight to the end the 
proposed and just and necessary laws by Congress, 
providing that the Federal Government shall not 
issue internal revenue licenses in prohibition terri- 
tory. They are as overweening and regardless of 
the rights of others as an invading army of Tartars. 
They care not what desolation they spread as a con- 
sequence of their acts. That is their business — they 
desolate for profit. They are not desirable citizens 
of the United States. 

It is not surprising that the people of the United 
States are being aroused. The forces of alcohol 
have as here described, drawn attention to their 
character and the extent of the evil they accomplish 



The Dawn 391 

to a greater degree than they have ever previously 
ventured upon. Their presumption and assurance 
have annoyed; their shamelessness and hardihood 
have provoked a general indignation, yet, bloated 
with years of prosperity and over-confident, they 
have openly arrayed themselves in opposition to 
the popular will. Where formerly they cringed 
for favors, beseeching only the right to live, they 
now assume to dictate. Organized into a gigantic 
trust with millions of dollars behind it, they defy 
public opinion and dare to threaten. They have 
accomplished more than they intended. They have 
aroused the apathetic. The liquor question is be- 
ing considered as it never was before. 

To study sufficiently the effect of alcohol as a 
beverage, is to make of any intelligent man or wo- 
man its lasting enemy. Its fearful results in poverty 
and disease and crime and universal suffering are 
shown too readily by figures which may not be dis- 
puted nor disregarded. Now, as a consequence of 
the struggle already begun and the defiant attitude 
of the liquor interests, the grave subject is engros- 
sing the attention, not merely of a section or a state, 
but of the whole people. 

Certain states have declared themselves and taken 
vigorous action. Will others, recognizing present 
gross conditions, with worse impending, elect to 
follow their wise example? It appears so, de- 
cidedly. Consider special cases as conditions ex- 



392 The Dawn 

isted in August, 1909. In Texas one hundred and 
fifty-two counties had already voted for prohibi- 
tion, a state campaign was on and a referendum vote 
promised. Arkansas had fifty-seven prohibition 
counties with little doubt that the legislature would 
make this the attitude of the state in 19 10. The in- 
dications were that Virginia would follow the ex- 
ample within a year, no less than ninety per cent, 
of her counties being already "dry." In West Vir- 
ginia over three-fourths of the territory was with- 
out saloons and a campaign in progress to make 
their rejection universal. In Ohio sixty-one coun- 
ties had adopted prohibition and the party was 
organized there for a state campaign. In Missouri 
the saloon was outlawed in seventy-seven counties, 
Sunday closing was enforced elsewhere and so as- 
sured was it that the state would adopt a general 
prohibitory law that steps had been taken by brew- 
ers and distillers for the removal of plants in case 
of too stringent legislation. Michigan had thirty 
prohibition counties and no less than seven hun- 
dred prohibition towns, the law was strictly en- 
forced and the outlook indicated making the inter- 
diction state -wide. In Ohio ninety per cent, of the 
territory was free from saloons; in Indiana two- 
thirds of the population lived under prohibition 
laws and in Illinois, where in Chicago and Peoria, 
the liquor interests are fortressed, there were thir- 
ty-six prohibition counties and two thousand five 



The Dawn 393 

hundred prohibition towns and villages. Even in 
Chicago, despite the efforts of the brewers and 
distillers, there are, strangely enough, large whole- 
some areas where their goods may not be sold, save 
stealthily and in disregard of ordinances. Massa- 
chusetts, Delaware, Minnesota, Wisconsin, even 
Kentucky are awakening, and so the list might be 
extended. The strengthening undercurrent is 
everywhere. The American People are thinking 
and acting. 

There are still other forces working against al- 
cohol and working from motives of self-interest 
commingled with a regard for the public welfare. 
Employers have much to say. The engineer or any 
other person who handles machinery, from the mo- 
torman to the elevator boy, the one who occupies 
any position where steadiness and regularity of ap- 
pearance are required, can no longer indulge in 
drink. The employer knows that such an one is 
not, in the end, a good investment. He can take no 
risks and, from what he has seen and knows, he is 
in favor of any movement against the use of liquor. 
This was not always so. Time was when the em- 
ployee who occasionally got drunk was tolerated, 
and this did not apply to the trades alone, but to the 
professions. The occasionally drunken doctor or 
lawyer might maintain a certain standing in the 
last generation. Who has not heard of this lawyer 
or that physician so gifted by nature that he could 



394 The Dawn 

"win a case in the face of the evidence," or could 
"save a man with one foot in the grave." This 
view of a regrettable fault has changed. The world 
is learning that reliability is what is wanted. It is 
not desirable to lose a lawsuit or a life, and the care 
of either is rarely entrusted to one who cannot be 
counted upon to be at his best in an emergency. 
The whole trend of sentiment in the manufacturing, 
business and professional worlds is increasing 
against even the use, to say nothing of the abuse, 
of liquor. The tolerance of a comparatively recent 
time has gone and the sympathy of those who con- 
duct the main affairs of life is with anti-liquor ef- 
fort and legislation. It is felt by such as these that 
the law of common sense should be the law of the 
land. 

There is not a man among the hundreds of thou- 
sands in the United States who supply food, cloth- 
ing, household needs and all other necessaries or 
luxuries or adornments to the community who is 
not a loser when the individual takes a drink. This 
is a people living comfortably and well, when it 
has the money. What is expended for drink does 
not go that way. It is lost irretrievably, except to 
the saloonkeeper. Not a cent of it goes for the 
home through purchases from the dealer in the 
requisites of life. What wonder that the whole- 
saler and retailer of things legitimate are opposed 
to the liquor traffic. Hundreds of millions of dol- 



The Dawn 395 

lars of trade are lost to them annually through the 
consumption of alcohol. These are good citizens, 
their united influence is tremendous; as the liquor 
traffic has increased their eyes have been opened 
to its result as affecting them directly; they note 
the fact that business has prospered more than be- 
fore in cities where prohibition is in force, and 
they can reach but one conclusion as to what is their 
wisest attitude. It is but a question of whether 
dollars gained by the people shall go to them or 
to the liquor trade. Prohibition should be and is 
becoming an intelligent retailers' movement. 

But, superior to all business considerations and 
apart from all estimate of the tragic consequences 
of drinking, there is possible and developing now 
a new mode of living which is recognized as mak- 
ing the use of alcohol as a stimulant inexcusable. 
If, with the unavoidable routine diet of other days, 
something at times seemed missing and the system 
to demand a spur, such plea for indulgence can be 
no longer urged. The man who thinks he requires 
and who seeks a stimulant need no longer resort to 
alcohol. With added means of transportation and 
preservation, our diet can be changed at will. The 
season of fruits and vegetables extends, practically, 
over all the year and the art of canning has so de- 
veloped that they may be had almost as good as 
fresh at all times. Sugar in its various forms is 
cheap and within the reach of all and we are be- 






396 The Dawn 

coming a nation unrestrained in the consumption 
of sweet things. Sugar is a better stimulant than 
whiskey, for it is more than a mere stimulant, it is 
a special food for bodily fatigue. It is a "pick- 
me-up." There should be no goading of the system. 
When one is very tired, he should rest. If, how- 
ever, the exigencies of the occasion will not per- 
mit, a spoonful of sugar dissolved in a glass of 
water and drank, will relieve fatigue of mind and 
body. Those who have never experienced it, will 
be astonished at its invigorating effect. Govern- 
ments issue chocolate cakes as aid rations for their 
soldiers and it is becoming a practice with many 
shrewd contractors to supply their workmen with 
candy in the afternoon, to overcome the slowness 
and sluggishness which come upon them in the 
closing hours of labor. So bountifully are we pro- 
vided for in this envied country that there is no 
longer an excuse for poisoning the system in a mis- 
taken effort to assist it. We have natural stimu- 
lants and aids enough at hand, and the intelligent 
are realizing it. This simple physical fact and 
good fortune must aid in national reformation. 

And, finally, this is becoming a more thoughtful 
people as it becomes more fully informed as to the 
factors making or marring the quality of its exist- 
ence. The enormous evil resulting from strong 
drink has been made apparent. The course of the 
nation will speak for itself. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

A SUMMARY OF CONDITIONS. 

When a cause is just, and the demand for its sup- 
port imperative, all its issues, and the facts sustain- 
ing them, may be presented with assurance. What, 
briefly recapitulated, are the evils of the liquor 
traffic in the United States, how are they nourished 
and extended, and what is the attitude and purpose 
of the great reform movement now in progress? 

First in the summary let us consider the cost of 
strong drink as compared with other vast expendi- 
tures, not merely induced like that for alcohol, but 
incumbent on the people. 

As already repeated in this work, the people of 
the United States paid for alcohol in the year 1906 
— which is taken as a sample year because of the 
completeness of data in various ways — the sum of 
$1,607,000,000; that is, the sum of one billion six 
hundred and seven million dollars was the liquor 
bill of the country. The figures are so great that 
they require thought before they can fairly be 
grasped or understood. 

In the same year, the people had, as usual, to 
support the government — the government which al- 
lowed the liquor traffic— and to support such a 

397 



398 A Summary of Conditions 

government as ours a great deal of money is re- 
quired. For instance, in the year indicated Con- 
gress appropriated $70,396,361 for the support of 
the army — our small army we could not do with- 
out; for the naval service, $100,336,679 was appro- 
priated — without a navy we would be insignificant 
and unprotected among the nations of the world; 
for our veterans, those who have suffered for the 
country, the pension list appropriation was $138,- 
250,100 — this is the country which has shown that 
republics are not ungrateful ; to meet the civil list, 
that is the payment of the tens of thousands of 
government employes, an appropriation of $56,269,- 
468 was necessary — we do not pay our employes 
high wages, but we pay them something. Then 
there were to be met all the other great expenses — 
those of the Federal Courts, the Agricultural, Post- 
office and other departments and services, a host of 
indispensable requirements of the country, and the 
cost of these, added to the expenditures already 
given, made the total appropriations for the year 
$439,241,177. Be it remembered that in the same 
year the liquor dealers took from us $1,607,000,000! 
It will be perceived that it costs something to 
carry on the Government of the United States. The 
sum of $439,241,177 is a great deal of money. We 
have to pay taxes ; and those upon whom the burden 
chiefly falls are the better class of citizens, the hard- 
working and temperate, not the liquor consumers. 



A Summary of Conditions 399 

With the amount paid to the dealers in alcoholic 
drinks, the expenses of the entire Government of 
the United States could be met, with hundreds of 
millions of dollars to spare, enough to support all 
public charities, and have no distress in any com- 
munity anywhere, and with no necessity for taxa- 
tion! This enormous sum of $1 ,60 J, 000,000 can 
be enforcedly diverted, if not to the definite uses 
thus indicated, at least into the possession of the 
people generally, and for the promotion of the gen- 
eral welfare. Can Americans afford a continuance 
of the present tremendous evil? 

At least seventy-five per cent of the crimes in the 
United States, according to closest investigation, 
are the result of drinking. This is the country of 
murder. For the year here considered, 318 persons 
were tried for murder in England; in France, 847; 
in Germany, 567. The average of murders in the 
United States yearly is between 7,000 and 10,000. 
In 1896 they were 10,662. Lesser crimes are alike, 
in proportion, attributable to liquor, distributed 
and drunk here as in no other country. There are 
about 2,000 prisons in the United States, and the 
cost of supporting them is enormous, reaching into 
the hundreds of millions. Is it wisdom for the 
people to allow a continuance of what is responsible 
for most of the burden? 

The insane asylums and poor-houses of the 
country, largely, if not in the same proportions, 



400 A Summary of Conditions 

are filled, as a result of drink, from disease and the 
wreckage of homes and resultant pauperism. Can 
the people afford to have the burden made so heavy? 

The $1,607,000,000 of which the country is 
drained annually, for the benefit solely of those 
who manufacture or deal in alcohol in one form 
or another, is not half of what it loses in other ways 
through the evil wrought in increasing the burdens 
of organized humanity. Is it necessary to endure 
this? 

Such are some of the direct financial relations 
between the people of the United States and the 
liquor dealers; but there are other considerations. 
This is supposed to be, or at least has been so 
deemed in the past, a nation of progress, of decency 
and of religion. The Christian religion is the one 
we generally profess. It is being made a jest abroad 
by the manufacturers of beer and whiskey while, at 
the same time, they seek to extend the traffic in their 
products. The present movement in favor of better 
living is world-wide, but America is becoming rec- 
ognized as the headquarters of opposition to it, 
and as the camp of those who seek the debauching 
of other countries, the extension of indulgence in 
the poison made here, and universal disregard and 
contempt for the religion we recognize as true. 
As well expressed in that appealing work, "Our 
Captured Flag," by Eva Marshall Shonts, whose 
work against the liquor traffic has been excelled in 



A Summary of Conditions 401 

effectiveness by no one, "In Persia, the natives look 
upon our drunkenness as the result of Christianity. 
Even Turkey considers drunkenness a Christian 
sin. In some of the heathen countries they point 
the ringer of scorn at fellow-heathen as they lie 
drunk on our liquor, and exclaim, 'He is drunk as 
a Christian.' In Mohammedan countries they say, 
( He has left Mohammed, and gone to Jesus.' " 

"Within six months after our flag began to float 
in Cuba, two thousand saloons had been opened. As 
to the Philippine Islands, how dare we face the 
fact? President Schurman, the first chairman of the 
first Philippine Commission, says: 

"We found them a sober race ; and today Amer- 
ican civilization, represented mostly by the Amer- 
ican saloons, gambling dens, and their accompany- 
ing and unutterable evils, is rapidly sinking the 
native race lower and lower in vice and crime, while 
American soldiers, who went out noble, honorable 
boys, have gone crazy through drink, and are being 
sent home in handcuffs and legcuffs." 

Japan has turned to America for guidance, and 
breweries and distilleries are being advertised 
throughout her land. From America are sent out, 
all over the world, the drinks which are the curse 
of the world. Was it to be supposed that the liquor 
interests would be satisfied with their depredations 
here? As well expect a pirate to be content with 
the looting of a single ship. Can any decent and 



402 A Summary of Conditions 

patriotic American citizen look on with apathy, 
and be content, when one element in the community 
is bringing our religion into disrepute, and dis- 
seminating our greatest plague throughout the 
world? 

Is there any reason why the American people 
should endure the enormous losses borne or the in- 
dignity shown their institutions ? The liquor manu- 
facturers and dealers and consumers talk of "vested 
rights" and "personal liberty," placing upon these 
terms their own construction. So did the lottery 
managers, and so did the dealers in opium and co- 
caine. The lotteries have been driven from the 
country, and the sellers of cocaine and' morphine 
must take the consequences of their vicious trade, 
but all the lotteries that ever flourished, and all the 
cocaine and opium ever sold here have not accom- 
plished a hundredth part of the evil of strong drink. 
If the "vested rights" and "personal liberty" of the 
liquor dealers are infringed upon, by prohibition, 
then > assuredly, the lottery managers and the sellers 
of dangerous drugs have reason to complain that 
this is no longer a free country. There should be 
no distinction. 

As a matter of fact, the cry of "vested rights" and 
"personal liberty" is senseless and unjustified, raised 
but to befog and conceal an issue. No one has or 
can have a vested right to injure the community, 
nor can personal liberty extend into harmful license. 



A Summary of Conditions 403 

A great principle of government which the 
American people have adopted is that our affairs 
be conducted with regard to the greatest good for 
the greatest number. The liquor traffic is for the 
good of only the distillers and brewers, and those 
who sell their products. Are they a majority of our 
eighty million people? Is the greatest good of the 
greatest number promoted by allowing the traffic 
to continue, or, rather, is it not pursued for the good 
of the few, with incalculable injury to the many? 
Is not the very spirit of the Constitution violated 
as long as the hurtful business is tolerated? What 
possible exculpatory answer can be given? 

Of course there is a remedy for the existing con- 
dition. There is always a remedy for a bad condi- 
tion, when an intelligent community considers 
earnestly what action will result in the greatest 
good for the greatest number, and takes such action 
sternly. What course should be pursued with re- 
gard to alcohol is plain enough. The special tax 
upon it in any of its forms must be taken off, and 
all license for its manufacture discontinued. In 
other words, one man must have the same right as 
another to manufacture beer or whiskey, or any 
other drink, and the drink so made should be taxed 
only according to its value in the market. The Gen- 
eral Government should pay no more attention to 
the production of alcohol than it does to the manu- 
facture of shoes or oatmeal. This would make a 



404 A Summary of Conditions 

trade revolution of its kind. Whiskey might be sold 
for forty cents a gallon, and beer for two or 
three cents a glass. What of it? The States would 
have the matter in their own hands, and any State 
with a prohibitory law could enforce it thoroughly. 
The manufacturers of and dealers in alcoholic 
drinks would no longer have behind them the con- 
sent to do business with the implied moral support 
of the General Government, and must deal with 
the communities they afflict alone. The cost of 
whiskey or beer would have little to do with the 
case. Whether or not they could be bought at all 
would be the issue ! 

Of course such a change would not affect its pur- 
pose without a revision of the Interstate Com- 
merce Laws. As has been well expressed legally, 
prohibitory laws, under the present system, may be 
broken down by interstate liquor shipments. As 
the law and practice now exist, all of the forty-six 
States might adopt State prohibitory laws, but the 
liquor interests, concentrating, for instance, in the 
District of Columbia alone, could virtually annul 
the internal policies of all the States through the 
shipment of interstate liquors to every point in 
them, limited only in this nullification policy by the 
cost of transportation. 

Again, even were the issuance of licenses not dis- 
continued entirely by the General Government, but 
confined exclusively to non-prohibition States, 



A Summary of Conditions 405 

while at the same time the Interstate Commerce 
Laws were modified as suggested, nearly the same 
effect might be produced; but it might not be the 
wiser course to pursue, nor in accordance with the 
dominating idea of the greatest good for the greatest 
number. It would be a tangled, differentiating 
system, which, probably, would not in the end be 
found the best. The solution of the whole problem 
is a revision of the Interstate Commerce Laws, and 
no license by the Federal General Government. 
These things accomplished, the American people 
will deal with the overshadowing liquor problem, 
and will not fail. 

It must be borne in mind, that, whatever Con- 
gressional legislation may be required for the sup- 
pression of the liquor traffic is entirely practicable. 
No change in the Constitution is required to enable 
the necessary enactments. The only question in- 
volved is as to what saving mandate will be best. 

Is not the existent evil vast enough to arouse a 
people to action? Are not the means at their com- 
mand for the eradication of this evil simple and 
assuredly effective, demanding only united action? 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

A FINAL APPEAL. 

The issue now before the American people is one, t 
the importance and gravity of which can hardly be 
over-stated. The question is whether or not, as a 
result of general enlightenment, the country's great- 
est affliction shall be removed by practical and 
united action. To take part in this action every 
earnest citizen should be impelled and sustained by 
the most powerful motives affecting civilized hu- 
manity. Self-interest, conscience, the sense of duty, 
and patriotism, are alike appealed to. In the pro- 
gressing conflict new forces should appear — forces 
which hitherto have generally been inactive. The 
time and opportunity and demand have come when 
those who, while well inclined, have been apathetic, 
"MUST, as good citizens, take part in the struggle. 
Consider the nature of the summons. 

Never before was self-interest more directly or 
widely summoned to action than in the call upon 
every one among good citizens to engage personally 
in the warfare upon strong drink. There is not a 
human being between the two oceans who is not 
in some way injured by the evil. The yearly mone- 
tary loss alone, so frequently referred to in these 

406 



A Final Appeal 407 

pages, is almost beyond conception. It is enormous^ 
startling, confusing. It towers far into the hun- 
dreds of millions of dollars — one billion, six hun- 
dred and seven million dollars — expended for 
strong drink in a single year — a sum, which, added 
to the general wealth, would have made the lot of 
every person better. There remain to be added the 
value of the lost labor, the wrecked fortunes, the 
enormously increased expenditures upon prisons, 
asylums, aims-houses, and other resultants of the 
liquor traffic. Never before was levy of such 
gigantic toll, never such criminally induced waste. 
The money would have paid the expenses of an em- 
pire. Applied at home, it would have relieved the 
needs of all the poverty-stricken, and reduced the 
taxation of the nation. It was drained, not from the 
consumers of drink alone, but from the entire com- 
munity. A great people have been plundered by 
the agents of a vice and must protect themselves 
from continued or even greater despoliation. It is 
a question of money, of that which we need for liv- 
ing, and on a scale which dazes. The huge showing 
is as plain and indisputable as ever an accountant 
made. 

And here may come in properly an illustration. 
There are those who say that the money expended 
for liquor is not lost; that it is "still in circulation." 
What fallacy ! what nonsense ! Money is practically 
never lost. Money is but a token. It is only its uses 



408 A Final Appeal 

that count. The money expended by the dynamiter 
is not lost. As it is used, it wrecks a building, and 
kills, it may be, but the dynamite dealer has it. It 
is "still in circulation." The money is lost to those 
who expend it for liquor, for they get what is a 
great deal less and worse than nothing, in return. 
It has but gone infamously and harmfully through 
an incident in its career. It is its use to the ruin of 
millions that those enlisted in the temperance move- 
ment would prevent. 

But what of money? What is money, in any un- 
expressable quantity, compared with the greatest 
things in the world, human life and human happi- 
ness ? They have been sacrificed through the apathy 
of the unaffected. Is it not time that the con- 
sciences of the more fortunate should acquire the 
breath of life? Can any one who thinks find an 
excuse for being longer a mere regretful observer, 
taking no active part in the movement for the good 
of millions? We are our brothers' keepers, else 
there is no such thing as kindliness, nor is there any 
Christianity. Should we not restrain a madman 
who would destroy an eye or slash the tendons of his 
arm or make an attempt at suicide? Would not he 
be little less than a murderer who looked on indif- 
ferently while a sleep-walker went dreaming to his 
death or who put forth no saving hand as another 
human being was swept within his reach in suffo- 
cating waters? What difference between such un- 




Copyright 1910, by W. R. Vaasant. 

THE SUMMONS TO THE APATHETIC 
Columbia calls upon the indifferent and reluctant citizen to come forth 
and do his duty. He cannot avoid his obligation to the community nor 
disregard the future welfare of his country. 



A Final Appeal <109 

fortunate and imperiled ones and those who are 
being poisoned by alcohol? Are not they, as well, 
either mad or blind or helpless? If we fail to try 
to save them, is there any palliation for our crime 
of negligence? The conscience of the more im- 
mune of the American people has been stilled too 
long to the simple and imperative call for action 
regarding the liquor traffic. The crime of the in- 
different and inert may at one time have been partly 
the crime of ignorance, but such a plea will no 
longer serve. 

The grim facts relating to the greatest in- 
fliction and bane of humanity are being presented 
as they never were before — truthfully, plainly, 
glaringly. They are being laid open to the gaze of 
every intelligent being in the community. The 
magazines are devoting their pages to an exposition 
of the evils of strong drink — as something com- 
manding public interest and attention. The col- 
umns of the daily press are full of the same subject. 
Even the pitiful lesson is being taught in plays, 
where, for once, there need be no exaggeration of 
the results of weakness and indulgence. Cold- 
bloodedness or disregard can no longer be accounted 
for because of unenlightenment. The man out in 
the world, the woman in the home, the child in the 
schools, are alike being informed as to the nature 
of the monstrous traffic extended in this country 
until its effects are seen in a universal blight. The 



410 A Final Appeal 

traffic can be suppressed, and the blight eradicated, 
but only by united and determined effort. Those 
who have been laggard must do their part hence- 
forth. The enemy which must be met is strong and 
unscrupulous, and well-equipped. The battle must 
extend all over the United States and will be bitterly 
contested, it may be for years to come. A triumph 
such as must be had, for the good of all humanity, 
is not gained in an hour, nor by a single onset. The 
liquor interests are aroused to the full import of the 
situation. They have forebodings. They know 
what besets them, and will fight like robbers guard- 
ing their plunder. They know that elections must 
be carried, legislators bribed or bullied/courts made 
pliant, and all the machinery of devious politics 
utilized to the utmost, if they are to maintain their 
ruthless ascendency. They can be beaten, for there 
is in the United States a vast majority of the honest, 
far-seeing and patriotic; but the force opposing 
them must be great. More than the Old Guard 
must be arrayed against them. The formerly re- 
luctant must appear upon the firing line. Sympathy 
with a cause, good wishes, prayer, are excellent in 
their way ; but Providence demands something more 
in the winning of battles. Prayer has been tried 
in the temperance cause for a good many years now. 
It will be effective when the over- ruling Power sees 
it supplemented by active work. He or she whose 
sense of duty does not suggest more than a do-noth- 



A Final Appeal 411 

ing attitude in what has become a national crisis 
with a vast opportunity to be seized for effecting 
good, would seem to have a conscience which must 
be dead or dwarfed or paralyzed. There is not a 
man or woman or youth of either sex who cannot 
aid in some way, and who should not realize the 
fact. Is it not all plain enough? We endeavor to 
reform criminals. Why not abolish what leads to 
crime? We give alms to the poor. Why not re- 
move the greatest cause of poverty? We would ex- 
tend the world of Christianity. Why not remove 
an obstacle in the way of making converts? We 
seek the attainment of good. Why neglect the 
greatest opportunity ever offered for accomplish- 
ing it? 

Every one who enjoys the benefits and privileges 
of a governed and advancing civilization is subject, 
in return, to certain obligations, and the perform- 
ance of certain duties. It is the duty of every 
good citizen to uphold the law, and always to take 
such a course as will be for the betterment of the 
community as a whole. In time of peril, by fire or 
flood, he must do his part. In time of war, he must, 
if need be, join the ranks. Duty implies the doing 
of things. 

The world of science and the world of sympathy 
is looking with deepest interest upon a battle which 
is going on in Africa. A certain region of that 
continent is infested by an insect known as the tsetse 



412 A Final Appeal 

fly, the bite of which has resulted in hundreds of 
thousands of deaths, and is causing more. The 
malady which follows the bite is new and mysteri- 
ous, something which, so far, has baffled the ablest 
investigators. It is known as "the sleeping sick- 
ness." Relief has been found only in the elimina- 
tion of the fly, which breeds chiefly in damp, un- 
cleared surroundings. The victim of the disease 
caused by the bite does not suffer pain at the time, 
but becomes dull and drowsy, and gradually 
weaker. Though he may linger for months in hope- 
less, apathetic misery, he must die. None has re- 
covered from the sleeping sickness. 

What is civilized humanity doing with regard to 
this strange and pitiable case in Africa? It is act- 
ing promptly. Those affected by the malady are 
isolated in camps; and the untouched are kept 
away from areas which the tsetse fly infests, while 
efforts are being made to find a means for its total 
extermination. Eventually the mortal pest will dis- 
appear, and Christianized and dominant mankind 
will have saved hosts of a weaker race. A duty is 
being done. 

Yet the deadly tsetse fly is a harmless thing as 
compared with alcohol. It has slain its hundreds 
of thousands: strong drink has caused the death 
of millions. A sleeping sickness as fatal as ever 
affected a savage tribe in Africa has fixed itself 
upon its hosts here in America, and war upon the 



A Final Appeal 413 

thing which caused it has but now become far- 
reaching and determined. Can any one not feel 
compelled to join in such campaign, from a sheer 
sense of duty? Is it possible that among those who 
realize the need, and hear the call, but make no 
effort, there may exist a sleeping sickness of the 
conscience? 

In America, if anywhere in the world, exists the 
virtue of patriotism. It has been exhibited in the 
deeds of many a private life, and shown upon a 
thousand battle-fields. The spirit which is love of 
country and its guard to highest development, is a 
surpassing virtue. We have it here, and there is 
opportunity for its glorious exhibition at the pres- 
ent time. The welfare of the country is imperiled, 
and the enemy which must be overcome is recog- 
nized. Strong drink is causing a deterioration of 
the people. It is making them degenerate. It is 
sapping their energies. It is endangering the fu- 
ture of the Republic. There is no exaggeration 
in this statement. The facts confirm and justify 
it. The use of alcohol is lessening the strength of 
Americans mentally and physically. Weakness re- 
sulting from the sensual indulgence of their citi- 
zens has resulted in the destruction of governments 
in the past; history repeats itself, and no perpetual 
immunity from such a fate is promised here. If 
our future career in its quality is to equal the stand- 
ard of the past, we must restore and maintain the 



414 A Final Appeal 

standard of our Americanism. We are not doing 
that now. Who, possessing a single patriotic in- 
stinct, can look upon the change in progress, and 
realize all that it means, without a stern desire to 
check it? The opportunity is at hand in the war 
against strong drink which has begun, and it must 
seem that he who does not enlist in the army of 
reform cannot have earnestly at heart the welfare 
of his country. Is he not a weakling who would be 
a non-combatant now, a recreant in the face of the 
foe? 

Consider what would happen if the use of alco- 
holic liquors were to be abandoned entirely in the 
United States; if the great movement now in prog- 
ress were to result, as it is intended, in the absolute 
non-consumption of strong drink. Imagine the 
progress of a nation relieved of that greatest of 
burdens and afflictions! Think of what it would 
be with its added billions of wealth to be devoted 
to all best purposes, and its life unencumbered and 
unembarrassed by the support of a vast army of its 
insane and sick and criminals and paupers! What 
a marvel in history w r ould not such a nation be, and 
how it would tower above all others in leading the 
march of progress of mankind! There could be 
no limit to accomplishment, because the people, 
clear-minded and capable, would be equal to all 
demands and opportunities. There could be no 
limit to the degree of that happiness which all are 



A Final Appeal 415 

seeking, because it comes to those possessing healthy 
minds in healthy bodies. There could be, with a 
change so great, such an illustration of what absti- 
nence and a regard for the laws of nature may ac- 
complish, that all the civilized world, in time, 
would imitate the great example. 

And such an end may be achieved. Sparta, 
whose people occupied but a petty belt of land, 
smaller than many a county of the United States, 
taught something of what a nation's just restraint 
of weaker citizens might do; and here an end 
greater ten thousand times might be attained with 
but a fraction of Spartan self-denial. The proposi- 
tion is simple. It is but the checking of a plague, 
the abandonment of a far-extending and vicious 
system. It is possible and practicable. 

The struggle for such vast achievement has be- 
gun. It is not a war of subjugation and oppression, 
but one of self-defense and earnest purpose. The 
liberties of none will be imperiled by its successful 
issue. The sufferers in any event will be the less- 
deserving few, and the beneficiaries will be count- 
less. The conflict may be ended soon, or it may be 
long continued. It matters not. There can be no 
question as to the end. There is but one essential. 
The spirit in which the war is waged must be one of 
unbending purpose. Dogged persistence and in- 
flexibility must distinguish the campaign on the 
part of the community. Whatever forces may rise 



416 A Final Appeal 

to baffle or impede must be as nothing. Every foot 
of territory gained must be held, determinedly and 
unyieldingly, and every day must be devoted to 
further conquest. There must be no date except 
that of its beginning to the war on liquor. Alcohol 
is a foe, and the war against it must be implacable, 
unrelenting, and endless as time. The foe must be 
utterly subdued, and its forces confined with those 
of cocaine and opium. 

That is all there is to it. A victory complete and 
secure and attaining may be had if the fight be 
as determined as it is already ardent. Self-interest, 
Conscience, Duty, Patriotism, and plain Common 
Sense will engage side by side — and they never fail ! 

This is not fanaticism nor intolerance nor harsh- 
ness. It is but the explanation of a case where vast 
action is demanded. It is reason, 






I 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



